One of the latest technologies to sequence or “read” all the information contained in the DNA of different organisms. Image by: TGAC
Our bodies are made of millions of cells, each of them containing a complete instruction manual telling them how to make all the bits that make up that cell, and how to make them work together. This instruction manual comes in the form of DNA and it is called the genome.
Your genome is quite similar to the genome of any of your classmates, your teacher, or the scientists you’ll be talking to, and that is why we are all humans. However, no two humans have identical DNA, we all have our own very unique genome.
Animals, plants, bacteria… All living things have genomes with the instructions to make each one of them. And genomics is the study of all of these instructions. There is a big body of scientists looking at the content of genomes from different species, trying to learn more about how these instructions are read by our cells, and how they have changed over time, giving rise to all the different organisms that populate our planet today.
