Genetics

Introduction
Genetics is the process of trait inheritance from parents to offspring, including the molecular structure and function of genes, gene behavior in the context of a cell or organism (e.g. dominance and epigenetics), gene distribution, and variation and change in populations (such as through Genome-Wide Association Studies). Given that genes are universal to living organisms, genetics can be applied to the study of all living systems; including bacteria, plants, animals, and humans. The observation that living things inherit traits from their parents has been used since prehistoric times to improve crop plants and animals through selective breeding.The modern science of genetics, seeking to understand this process, began with the work of Gregor Mendel in the mid-19th century.

Why study Genetics?
Genetics has always been concerned with the problem of how the hereditary information in DNA controls what an organism looks like and how it works. Classically this involved the use of genetic variants (mutants) to upset the biological function of the cells or organisms and, from the effect of these mutations, to make deductions about the way cells and organisms worked. At the molecular end of the subject, the availability of sequence information and genomic analysis together with sophisticated techniques for gene replacement and analysis of gene expression patterns (microarray technology), gives us much more powerful tools for looking at the way genes work to make us what we are. At the other extreme of the subject, a knowledge of genetics is fundamental to an understanding of how organisms, populations and species evolve. One of the most exciting developments in the subject in the last few years is the way in which these two extremes have begun to approach each other through the application of the new molecular systematics to the problems of development, evolution, and speciation.