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“Genomics”,
“Genetics”…you say “potato”,
I say…well, you know the rest. So what do they have
in common, anyway? Simple! “Gene”!
I’m just
kidding around. The fact is, genomics and genetics are pretty
closely related. Both of them look at DNA to figure out how
bodies work (remember DNA? It’s that funky stuff in
all of us living things - humans, fruit flies, plants, everything
that lives! - that tells our cells how to behave). Genomics
and genetics overlap one another because both studies…wait
for it…genes!
But here’s
the difference: “genetics” looks at how one or
two individual genes act to form a particular trait, while
“genomics” looks at how several genes work together
to form another particular trait. So, if I want to know why
I have a predisposition to big muscles in my arms (yeah,
check it, I’ve been totally working out…), "genetics"
might look at an individual "muscled arm" gene.
But if I want to know why my big buff arms are attached to
a big tall body (which in my case, I'm sorry to say, they're
not...), that's "genomics" - because it takes many
genes working together to form a trait like height (as opposed
to a single gene to determine something like "muscled arms").
But don’t
take my word for it. Somebody a whole lot smarter than me
can tell you more at Genomics
vs. Genetics.
Click
here for the definition of genome
in glossary
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March 2009
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