From Agence France-Presse: A team of geneticists from Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC) in Holland announced today that they’ve sequenced a woman’s DNA. It’s the first time female DNA has been completely sequenced — first the duck-billed platypus, and now this. The formal announcement, made today at the Bessensap press event, is in Dutch. From the AFP wire story:

“The sequencing of a woman allows a better understanding of the X-chromosome,” the gene thread associated with female characteristics, said Gert-Jan van Ommen, head of the team that carried out the study.

Four other genomes had been mapped previously, all of them men.