ABSTRACT

Recently, many changes have taken place in the study of biological sciences as a result of improvements in the ability to ef ciently sequence deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). DNA is a very long chainlike macromolecule, made up of nucleotides and used by biological systems to store and transfer genetic information. The sequence of the DNA nucleotides can tell a great deal about the identity and function of individual genes and proteins within an organism. Thus, it also helps to explain how organisms operate, survive, and interact with their environments. The ability to sequence the DNA with an organism has led to some remarkable new technologies that have fundamentally changed the way we approach biology. These technologies as well as the approaches used to gather, assemble, and annotate large amounts of sequence information will be explored in this chapter. This chapter is written primarily for students of biotechnology to provide a basic understanding and starting off point on various aspects of genomics.