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We carry stores of DNA in our nuclei that may have come in, at one time or another, from the fusion of ancestral cells and the linking of ancestral organisms in symbiosis. Our genomes are catalogues of instructions from all kinds of sources in nature, filed for all kinds of contingencies.

Living in your genome is the history of our species.

Biology will relate every human gene to the genes of other animals and bacteria, to this great chain of being.

Your genome knows much more about your medical history than you do.

The genome was once thought to be just the blueprint for a living organism, like a combination of the architect's plan for a building and the builder's list of supplies. It specified the parts, the building blocks, and, somehow, the design of the whole, the way in which they are to be put together.

At the deepest level, all living things that have ever been looked at have the same DNA code. And many of the same genes.

Your genome sequence will become a vital part of your medical record, thereby providing critical information about how to optimize your wellness.

For each gene in your genome, you quite often get a different version of that gene from your father and a different version from your mother. We need to study these relationships across a very large number of people.

One of the central mysteries of biology is why the genome is largely identical from cell to cell, even though cells do different things.

Our understanding of how DNA informs our health and development is advancing at an incredible pace.