Genomics is defined as the branch of Molecular Biology concerned with the structure, function, evolution and mapping of genomes. If you are wondering what a genome is, it is a collection of all the genetic material in our cells, that ultimately decides how our bodies work.
Let’s take a step back and think about a single cell in a human’s body. It is comprised of various organelles including a nucleus that has the infamous DNA efficiently packaged in a very small space! The cell has a certain morphology and every time it divides it gives rise to copies of itself. However, it might be interesting to note that different organs have different cells. For example, neurons or neural cells are very different when compared to epithelial cells of the skin or hepatocytes of the liver. Every cell has a different morphology and function depending on where it is present. Although the DNA in all these cells is the exact same, the expression of different genes in different cells is responsible for the large variety of cells in our body.
Interestingly, all humans on this planet are 99.9% identical. Our genomes (aka our DNA sequences) are only 0.01% different, mind-blowing but indeed all variations rest solely on this very minute fraction! The frequent arrangement of four nucleotide bases A, T, G and C in our DNA is mostly accurate but isn’t immune to errors, some of those errors go by unacknowledged and some take a hard hit resulting in disease formation.
“Why is genomics even important?” you might ask. Thousands of talented scientists were able to decode the entire human genome in 12 years’ time through the human genome project. But that’s old news; latest technology allows for the analysis of the genomes of several 100 people in 2-3 days’ time. What one can do with this kind of data is unfathomable!! In my opinion, analyzing this information is like looking into the future. Prediction and diagnosis of disease, treatment of rare diseases through personalized medicine, gene therapy, pre-natal diagnosis and testing, identification of genetic factors responsible for common diseases and discovery of potential cures using genomic editing are some of the clinical applications of genomics.
In conclusion, the field of genomics will be the next big thing in terms of disease diagnosis and therapy, provided the enormous amounts of genomic data are analyzed in a meticulous and ingenious manner.
P.S. I apologize for repeatedly using the word ‘different’ in this post, it had to be done!
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