ABSTRACT
The central dogma of molecular biology (Figure 1.1a), enunciated by Crick (Crick, 1954), specišed that the instruction manual is DNA (encoding genes) and that genes were transcribed into RNA to ultimately produce the basic operational elements of cellular biology, proteins whose interactions, through many levels of complexity, result in functioning living cells. This was the šrst description of the action of genes. After an enormous experimental effort spanning the last half-century, made possible by the development of many assays and technological advances in computing, sensing, and imaging, it has become apparent that the basic instruction manual and its processing are vastly more sophisticated than what was imagined in the 1950s. With the advent of these novel technologies, the primary focus of modern biology has shifted to link genotype to phenotype, interpreted broadly, from the level of the cellular environment to links with development and disease, and the central dogma has now been viewed as an integration of the -ome studies as depicted in Figure 1.1b.
