San Antonio College Library

As the Human Genome Project completed its mapping of the entire human genome, hopes ran high that we would rapidly be able to use our knowledge of human genes to tackle many inherited diseases, and understand what makes us unique among animals. But things didn't turn out that way ... but the emerging picture is if anything far more exciting. Parrington gives an outline of the deeper genome, involving layers of regulatory elements controlling and coordinating...

In this textbook the author provides an account of RNA research, illuminated by his own life-long engagement in the field. He describes how scientists unraveled fundamental questions about the biochemical and genetic importance of RNA, how mRNAs are generated and used to produce proteins, how noncoding and catalytic RNAs mediate key cellular processes, and how RNA molecules likely initiated life on Earth. With a scope extending from the early 20th...

"For decades after the identification of the structure of DNA, scientists focused only on genes, the regions of the genome that contain codes for the production of proteins. Other regions that make up 98 percent of the human genome were dismissed as "junk," sequences that serve no purpose. But researchers have recently discovered variations and modulations in this junk DNA that are involved with a number of intractable diseases. Our increasing knowledge...