Next, we have comparative genomics.
And this is when you compare the
similarities and differences in the
genetic code of different species.
It used to be that figuring out a genomic
code took millions and millions of dollars,
but some of the technology that
was developed during the human genome project
is now used to make this a much
faster process.
And it now takes about $7,000-8,000 and
about three weeks to get a complete
genome of a particular species.
Comparative genomics can answer a lot of interesting questions.
Is this species a good model for studying human disease?
I'm sure a lot of people have heard that
we use mice instead of humans for
different kinds of medical studies.
Comparative genomics would tell us -
well, are their genes similar for studying
lung cancer or or studying digestive diseases?
Maybe there's other models that
would work better for different kinds of diseases.
We use fruit flies and zebrafish to study genetics, but we can see - are those good models or not?
We use yeast to study basic cellular functions, and again, we can see
how much from the yeast still applies to humans?
Another important question is how closely two species are related?
So we can look at genomics to understand the degree of
genetic change between different groups and that can help give us some of our
family trees.
Genomics can look at why a particular crop is more drought tolerant
than another.
There's a lot of work in agriculture trying to understand,
for example, why this wild species can survive drought where other species
can't.
If we can identify how the genes are different, maybe we can
genetically engineer our crops to be able to be  drought tolerant as well.
Another question is understanding evolutionary  change at molecular levels.
So here, we're seeing the gene for cytochrome C, which is part of
our electron transport chain, and how that has changed over time.
All living things have cytochrome C, so it
makes a nice comparison.
We can even use comparative genomics to figure out what species
were in a place, even when they're not there anymore!
This video will explain "DNA bar coding" and how that might work.
