Over the past twenty five years, a mere sliver of recorded time, the world of biology — and indeed the world in general — has been transformed by the technical tools of a field now known as genomics. These new methods have had at least two kinds of effects. First, they have allowed scientists to generate extraordinarily useful information, including the nucleotide-by-nucleotide description of the genetic blueprint of many of the organisms we care about most—many infectious pathogens; useful experimental organisms such as mice, the round worm, the fruitfly, and two kinds of yeast; and human beings. Second, they have changed the way science is done: the amount of factual knowledge has expanded so precipitously that all modern biologists using genomic methods have become dependent on computer science to store, organize, search, manipulate and retrieve the new information.
Thus biology has been revolutionized by genomic information and by the methods that permit useful access to it. Equally importantly, these revolutionary changes have been disseminated throughout the scientific community, and spread to other interested parties, because many of those who practice genomics have made a concerted effort to ensure that access is simplified for all, including those who have not been deeply schooled in the information sciences. The goal of providing genomic information widely has also inevitably attracted the interests of those in the commercial sector, and privately developed versions of various genomes are also now available, albeit for a licensing fee.
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