AKIPRESS.COM - A team of UK scientists have claimed the record for decoding the world's longest DNA sequence, BBC reports.

The scientists produced a DNA read that is about 10,000 times longer than normal, and twice as large as a previous record holder, from Australia.

This research has kick-started an Ashes-style competition to sequence an entire chromosome in a single read.

The new holder of the trophy for world's longest DNA read is a team led by Matt Loose at Nottingham University.

The advance is a technological one - this is about reading the DNA rather than the discovery of a particularly large genome. The DNA used for the long read came from a human.

But the scientists hope the work will make it quicker and easier to sequence genetic information because, currently, DNA has to be chopped up into smaller pieces and then reassembled during the process of sequencing.