 The first genome to be sequenced was that of a virus, namely bacteriophage ΦX174, sequenced by Frederick Sanger in 1977 (Sanger et al. 1977). Up to about 1985, work on several other viruses was initiated in different laboratories across the world and even the sequencing of model organisms such as the bacterium Escherichia coli or the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans was being  tackled.[7]