Genomics is the study of the genome, which is a fundamental part of our DNA. In many ways, genomics and genetics are related, but genetics focuses mostly on genes and how they are inherited. Genomics uses a wide variety of tools such as recombinant DNA, DNA sequencing methods, and bioinformatics to help better understand genomes.

Genomics as a study has only officially existed for a small amount of time. While the word genome stems back to 1926, genomics would not show up until much later, in 1986. Genomics was founded by Tom Roderick, who was stationed at Jackson Laboratory and was a well-known geneticist. This occurred at a meeting in Maryland; discussion on mapping the human genome.

Sequencing is one of the fundamental ways that the human genome is studied. Sequencing is when you look within the DNA or RNA (ribonucleic acid) and figure out the order of nucleotides, which are the building block of nucleic acids. This used to have to be done at large centers where multiple terabytes of information were processed every year. With advances in science and the declining cost of technology, almost any academic lab can now properly sequence genomes with relatively low cost.

Once sequencing is done, it must be assembled in the proper owner. This is known as sequence assembly, and helps scientists figure out what the original DNA order was. The reason they must be assembled is because DNA sequencing methods only help figure out what is part of the DNA, but not what order it comes in.

There are approaches to sequence assembly, de novo and comparative. De novo assembly is for genomes that have not been sequenced previously. Comparative assembly uses previous sequencing information to help assemble the genome. De novo is considered exceedingly difficult compared to comparative, and as such is mostly used by machines rather than by an individual.

The final step to writing out the human genome is a process called genome annotation. This is taking what information has been gathered from sequencing and assembly and putting biological information behind all the numbers so to speak.

There are three main steps to annotation, the first of which is studying and identifying parts of the genome that do not interact with proteins. The second is gene prediction, which helps identify different elements of the genome. The final step is taking all the biological information gathered and putting it as part of the entire sequence, thus giving us infinitely valuable information on the genome.

Genomics has advanced our knowledge in many complicated processes. It has helped better understand DNA sequences in all organisms, the minute details in genetic mapping, as well as given us a deeper understanding into many complicated processes. The human brain is one of them, with deeper understandings leading us to many fascinating conclusions, like the fact that a single cell can express 20,000 different proteins. With further research, we shall unlock many hidden potentials in humanity behind the mysteries of the genome.

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