Question: Why is DNA sequence important in research?
About the article "Nucleic acid sequence", section "Sequence determination".

Candidate passages:
DNA sequencing is the process of determining the nucleotide sequence of a given DNA fragment.
The sequence of the DNA of a living thing encodes the necessary information for that living thing to survive and reproduce.
Therefore, determining the sequence is useful in fundamental research into why and how organisms live, as well as in applied subjects.
Because of the importance of DNA to living things, knowledge of a DNA sequence may be useful in practically any biological research.
For example, in medicine it can be used to identify, diagnose and potentially develop treatments for genetic diseases.
Similarly, research into pathogens may lead to treatments for contagious diseases.
Biotechnology is a burgeoning discipline, with the potential for many useful products and services.RNA is not sequenced directly.
Instead, it is copied to a DNA by reverse transcriptase, and this DNA is then sequenced.
Current sequencing methods rely on the discriminatory ability of DNA polymerases, and therefore can only distinguish four bases.
An inosine (created from adenosine during RNA editing) is read as a G, and 5-methyl-cytosine (created from cytosine by DNA methylation) is read as a C. With current technology, it is difficult to sequence small amounts of DNA, as the signal is too weak to measure.
This is overcome by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification.
DNA sequencing is the process of determining the nucleotide order of a given DNA fragment.
So far, most DNA sequencing has been performed using the chain termination method developed by Frederick Sanger.
This technique uses sequence-specific termination of a DNA synthesis reaction using modified nucleotide substrates.
However, new sequencing technologies such as Pyrosequencing are gaining an increasing share of the sequencing market.
More genome data is now being produced by pyrosequencing than Sanger DNA sequencing.
Pyrosequencing has enabled rapid genome sequencing.
Bacterial genomes can be sequenced in a single run with several X coverage with this technique.
This technique was also used to sequence the genome of James Watson recently.
The sequence of DNA encodes the necessary information for living things to survive and reproduce.
Determining the sequence is therefore useful in fundamental research into why and how organisms live, as well as in applied subjects.
Because of the key nature of DNA to living things, knowledge of DNA sequence may come in useful in practically any biological research.
For example, in medicine it can be used to identify, diagnose and potentially develop treatments for genetic diseases.
Similarly, research into pathogens may lead to treatments for contagious diseases.
Biotechnology is a burgeoning discipline, with the potential for many useful products and services.
The Carlson Curve is a term coined by The Economist to describe the biotechnological equivalent of Moore's Law, and is named after author Rob Carlson.
Carlson accurately predicted that the doubling time of DNA sequencing technologies (measured by cost and performance) would be at least as fast as Moore's Law.
Carlson Curves illustrate the rapid (in some cases hyperexponential) decreases in cost, and increases in performance, of a variety of technologies, including DNA sequencing, DNA synthesis and a range of physical and computational tools used in protein expression and in determining protein structures. 
All the functions of DNA depend on interactions with proteins.
These protein interactions can be non-specific, or the protein can bind specifically to a single DNA sequence.
Enzymes can also bind to DNA and of these, the polymerases that copy the DNA base sequence in transcription and DNA replication are particularly important. 
Transposon mediated.
Long interspersed element (LINE)-1.
A potential mechanism for exon shuffling is the long interspersed element (LINE) -1 mediated 3’ transduction.
However it is important first to understand what LINEs are.
LINEs are a group of genetic elements that are found in abundant quantities in eukaryotic genomes.
Upon transposition, L1 associates with 3’ flanking DNA and carries the non-L1 sequence to a new genomic location.
This new location does not have to be in a homologous sequence or in close proximity to the donor DNA sequence.
The donor DNA sequence remains unchanged throughout this process because it functions in a copy-paste manner via RNA intermediates; however, only those regions located in the 3’ region of the L1 have been proven to be targeted for duplication.
Nevertheless, there is reason to believe that this may not hold true every time as shown by the following example.
The human ATM gene is responsible for the human autosomal-recessive disorder ataxia-telangiectasia and is located on chromosome 11.
However, a partial ATM sequence is found in chromosome 7.
Molecular features suggest that this duplication was mediated by L1 retrotransposition: the derived sequence was flanked by 15bp target side duplications (TSD), the sequence around the 5’ end matched with the consensus sequence for L1 endonuclease cleavage site and a poly(A) tail preceded the 3’ TSD.
But since the L1 element was present in neither the retrotransposed segment nor the original sequence the mobilization of the segment cannot be explained by 3’ transduction.
Additional information has led to the belief that trans-mobilization of the DNA sequence is another mechanism of L1 to shuffle exons, but more research on the subject must be done. 
Peter B. Dervan (born June 28, 1945) is the Bren Professor of Chemistry at California Institute of Technology.
The primary focus of his research is the development and study of small organic molecules that can sequence-specifically recognize DNA, a field in which he is an internationally recognized authority.
The most important of these small molecules are pyrrole–imidazole polyamides.
He is married to fellow Caltech chemist Jacqueline Barton.