Human Genomics

• Genome - The whole hereditary information of an organism that is encoded in the DNA.
• Bioinformatics - the use of computer programs to search and identify base sequences by looking for sequences similar to known genes.
• Human genomics - the study of the human genome
• Personalised medicine - based on an individual‘s genome. Analysis of an individual‘s genome may lead to personalised medicine through understanding of the genetic component of risk of a disease. This is called pharmacogenetics.
• A genome is made up of genes and other DNA sequences that do not code for proteins.
• Computer programs can be used to identify:

  • Gene sequences by looking for coding sequences similar to known sequences/genes
  • Start sequences (there is a good chance that each of these will be followed by a coding sequence)
  • Sequences lacking stop codons (a protein coding sequence is normally a long chain of base triplets containing no stop codon except the one at its end)