Gene Editing & Functional Genomics

Gene editing refers to the process of changing regions of cellular DNA. The most common gene editing techniques involve inactivating a gene's function (knockout), introducing or correcting a SNP mutation, or adding a reporter tag to an endogenous gene (knock-in). Functional genomics is a field of molecular biology that attempts to describe gene (and protein) functions and interactions. Functional genomics make use of the vast data generated by genomic and transcriptomic projects (such as genome sequencing projects and RNA sequencing). Functional genomics focuses on the dynamic aspects such as gene transcription, translation, regulation of gene expression and protein–protein interactions, as opposed to the static aspects of the genomic information such as DNA sequence or structures. A key characteristic of functional genomics studies is their genome-wide approach to these questions, generally involving high-throughput methods rather than a more traditional "gene-by-gene" approach.