Buffalo, the source city associated with the major RP11 HGP donor, is in New York state. The city lies in western New York on the eastern end of Lake Erie, near the Niagara River and the Canadian border.
The connection to genomics comes through Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, whose name is reflected in the donor code RP11. A DNA library from an anonymous Buffalo-area male donor supplied more than 70% of the sequence in the public Human Genome Project reference assembly. That sample became disproportionately important because its library was considered especially suitable for sequencing and assembly.
New York is the state answer, not Massachusetts, California, or Maryland. A useful geographic caution is that “Buffalo” can also evoke the broader western New York region, but the city itself is unambiguously located in New York. The reference genome’s donor history also illustrates why a reference assembly should not be mistaken for the exact genome of a single fully identified individual.