 The term ‘genomics’, finally, was invented in 1986 at a meeting of several scientists who were brainstorming (in a bar) to come up with a name for a new journal that Frank Ruddle (Yale University) and Victor McKusick (Johns Hopkins University) were setting up. The aim of this journal was to publish data on the sequencing, mapping and comparison of genomes. To capture these different activities—and in analogy to the well-established discipline of genetics—Thomas Roderick (Jackson Laboratory) proposed the term ‘genomics’ (Kuska 1998). Unbeknownst to the people involved this was a significant moment in the history of the life sciences, as it is here that the -omics suffix appears for the first time.