GENTRODUCTION

Why Genes?

I won't give you the cliched biological relevance of these infamous things! Because, genes are more than just your heredity. They are how you look, feel, hurt and vibe. But most importantly, they are how you were programmed into this amazing being that can walk, talk, move and pretty much do anything to exist. For time immemorial, geneticists have studied the varied functionality of genes, but the more we know, the little we seem to understand about the complexity of these miniscule prodigies. If I talked you into what they can do, you might actually overestimate them, considering that there are a total of 25,000 genes on an average in the body of any human being, each coding for some character, that might seem redundant to you, but are quintessential in the way they collectively get you through a day.

The Human Genome Project (HGP), a thirteen year long endeavour, sequenced almost 99% of the euchromatic human genome, which in those times said little or nothing about how these genes predisposed us to certain behavioral, environmental and immunological changes, but that did not deter the spirit of Science from exploring every nook and corner of the chromosome, throwing light on how we resemble or differ from what made us and how we grow from a sixteen-celled nobody into a thirty trillion-celled somebody. This makes Genetics an extremely pertinent area for research and data analysis. In a gene pool, that transcribes, replicates and synthesises, there are millions of  things that could go wrong. The probability of insertions, substitutions, or complete silencing of certain amino acid residues can trigger mutations that range from mild to explosive when it comes to altering our DNA. These chromosomal mutations are the leading causes of congenital disorders and autoimmune diseases, both of which are equally traumatising concerns for the entire human race at large. The series of single gene or multigene defects that lead to the conversion of a wild-type allele to it's corresponding mutant form, make for interesting case studies that help us correlate the genetics of an individual with their more prominently visible phenotypes. It is this evolution of genes that challenges the one-directional flow of genetic information. From retrogressive development to bioluminescence, everything is accounted for by one's genes.

A quirkier explanation: 

Think of it like this:

If life was a blank face, one's genetic makeup is the only brush that could give it character and perspective. Your genes are the only things you can both sleep and wake up in!