ABSTRACT
Within a span of about half a century, DNA, genes, and genomes became the most popular words in science. Progress made in the science and techniques of molecular biology and genetics from the 1960s through 1980s paved the way for the human genome sequencing effort and eventually the birth of the science of genomics. With the advent of genomics, the nature of research in genetics and molecular biology has been transformed in recent decades from a gene-by-gene structure-function analysis to genome-wide analysis. One of the major impacts of such transformation is a shift from the traditional hypothesisdriven research to data-driven hypothesis formulation and research ( 3 ). Recent progress in genomics has been largely driven by the spectacular advances in various technologies of which microarray and gene expression analysis probably top the list. Naturally, the buzzwords that have been dominating the fi eld of genomics are largely technology-oriented so much so that for a general biologist, the “science” (genomics) and the “technology” (e.g., microarray) are almost inseparably intertwined.
