Eli5: What does it mean to “sequence” a specie’s genetic code (or “genome”) if no two individuals have the same genetic code ?
In: Biology
no two humans are 100% identical; however we are all 99.90% identical and that is useful
a lot of our genetic code, so far, seems to be pretty useless. So if we can figure out what bits of genetic code is useful and what it’s used for we can leverage that knowledge in medicine.
Sickle Cell, cystic fibrosis medicines (others soon) rely on finding and repairing very specific sets of genetic code. More research is showing things like bipolar diabetis has a genetic component that we might be able to one day “fix”
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