[diekhans]

We really should say "a human genome". Reference genomes serve as a Rosetta Stone of genomics. So we can take DNA/RNA sequences from other individuals and align (pattern match) them to the reference as a way of understanding and comparing individuals.

It is not perfect, as a references can be missing or have large variability in DNA regions. The goal of the Human Pangenome Reference Consortium (HPRC) https://humanpangenome.org/ is to sequence individuals from different populations to address this issue. We are also working to develop new computation models to support analysis of data across populations.