Plenty, says CLAS chemist Steve Benner, who investigates many genetic-based questions, including the role of genes in life, present and past. These genes dictate the production of proteins, which, as chains of 20 amino acids, can be mapped and stored as strings of letters in a computer. Thanks to sophisticated new research, we can now understand genes, once the mysterious building blocks of the human species, as complicated combinations of chemicals. In other words, says Benner, all modern genetic study boils down to organic chemistry.
Scientists are out there sequencing whole organisms.
They've done worms and bacteria and yeasts and are working on man. To do this, we are trying to understand how we can interpret chemical behavior and biological systems of genes in light of their evolutionary past. Here's where the pigs come in. This is also the period when pigs began having litters of multiple young. By correlating molecular events and reconstructing them in an evolutionary context, we can put together a story of function which converts these strings of letters into something that has meaning to a biologist.