Genomics and biotechnology applications Genomic laboratory applications Bioinformatics tools for genomic research Managing genome sequencing data New drug discovery and development Cell based therapy including stem cell technology Improved and enhanced food production including crops Innovations in genomic technologies Nanogenomics Genome vaccines Bioenergy production Genetics and genomics in c...

Quantitative-genetic approaches are often assumed to be restricted to phenotypic characters such as body weight, height, or some measure of shape. However, they apply equally well to molecular characters, such as mRNA and protein abundance. With the recent advent of functional genomics tools (such as microarrays) the power of quantitative genetics is now being widely applied to genomics. Genomi...

Background: Haplotyping is invaluable not only to identify genetic variants underlying a disease or trait, but also to study evolution and population history as well as meiotic and mitotic recombination processes. Current genome-wide haplotyping methods rely on genomic DNA that is extracted from a large number of cells. Thus far random allele drop out and preferential amplification artifacts of...

The central dogma of molecular biology states that DNA is transcribed to RNA, which is translated into proteins (Crick, 1970), the molecules that facilitate all biological functions. A genome comprises all of an organism’s DNA, or hereditary information. The field of genomics is the study of whole genomes. Genomics has been defined as “a branch of biotechnology concerned with applying the techn...

We all remember this experiment from freshman biology: Take a sterile swab, rub it along the inside of your cheek, and transfer the collected microbes to a sterile agar plate. After incubating the plate overnight at 37 °C, the agar will be awash in bacterial colonies, a glossy and somewhat smelly testament to the fact that humans, fundamentally, are giant microbial buses. Yet that picture, it t...