DNA sequence assembly is a rich combinatorial problem that arose with the first DNA sequencing projects in the early 80's. Here we give a short history of the progression of algorithmic ideas used to solve the de novo problem of inferring a genome given a large sampling of substrings covering it. This classic inverse problem is compounded by a variety of experimental features and artifacts that must be considered in any realistic solution. While current methods produce very good results, the perfect assembler has yet to be built.
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Eugene W. Myers (2016) studied this question.