Functional Genomics - Goals of Functional Genomics

Goals of Functional Genomics

The goal of functional genomics is to understand the relationship between an organism's genome and its phenotype. The term functional genomics is often used broadly to refer to the many possible approaches to understanding the properties and function of the entirety of an organism's genes and gene products. This definition is somewhat variable; Gibson and Muse define it as "approaches under development to ascertain the biochemical, cellular, and/or physiological properties of each and every gene product", while Pevsner includes the study of nongenic elements in his definition: "the genome-wide study of the function of DNA (including genes and nongenic elements), as well as the nucleic acid and protein products encoded by DNA". Functional genomics involves studies of natural variation in genes, RNA, and proteins over time (such as an organism's development) or space (such as its body regions), as well as studies of natural or experimental functional disruptions affecting genes, chromosomes, RNA, or proteins.

The promise of functional genomics is to expand and synthesize genomic and proteomic knowledge into an understanding of the dynamic properties of an organism at cellular and/or organismal levels. This would provide a more complete picture of how biological function arises from the information encoded in an organism's genome. The possibility of understanding how a particular mutation leads to a given phenotype has important implications for human genetic diseases, as answering these questions could point scientists in the direction of a treatment or cure.