Dr. Paul Hebert
Dr. Paul Hebert

An article by WIRED that explores researchers’ efforts to catalogue insects makes note of the University of Guelph’s Centre for Biodiversity Genomics, and the pioneering work of its founder Dr. Paul Hebert in the field of DNA barcoding. 

Hebert is also scientific director of the International Barcode of Life project in which researchers from 25 countries are assigning DNA barcodes to millions of specimens. The database currently contains records for 600,000 species and is used by almost 25,000 researchers worldwide. 

Hebert pioneered DNA barcoding in 2003, a technology that has now led to the discovery of thousands of new species and helped to identify mislabelled foods and to improve environmental monitoring.