GENOMICS: REVOLUTIONIZING MEDICINE

The Shape of Things to Come

By any measure, DNA is an extraordinary molecule. Magnify it 25 million times, and it is still too thin to see clearly. Yet a single human genome's worth of DNA stretched out would be about six feet long.

Molecular modeling showing the 3-D structures of proteins.

Computers are an indispensable tool for current genomic research — which requires the organized and accessible storage of vast amounts of biological information and the manipulation of that data often using complex algorithms. The term bioinformatics has been coined largely to describe genomics coupled with the use of computers. Bioinformatics may focus on extracting relevant details from complex biological structures , such as proteins or nucleic acids, to more accurately predict structures and functions of biological macromolecules from their sequences.

Genome sequence written out in letters.

The complexity of genomic information and the difficulty of uncovering rules that allow predictions of three-dimensional protein shapes from single-dimension, linear sequences makes bioinformatics an exciting and growing area of research. In the universe of proteins, shape is intimately tied to function. Researchers are now trying to construct mathematical models that will predict protein structures on the basis of the nucleotide sequences that code for them.

Schematic diagram showing how the nucleotide sequences of DNA code for proteins.