Gene

Microorganisms are the most widely distributed and numerous organisms in nature. They include bacteria, viruses, fungi, and more. They are among the oldest forms of life on Earth, the foundation of all life—the life within life.

The cells that make up animals and plants originally evolved from bacteria. By carbon-based standards, a person is a composite of countless bacteria.

"So silicon no longer rules the world; carbon does. Another name for our Gene Engineering Research Project is: How to find our way in the Age of Carbon." Shen Qi shared his thoughts.

A person's body is home to a quadrillion bacteria, weighing three kilograms in total. They carry many times more genes than humans do. One hundred trillion bacteria live in the human gut. They're normal inhabitants of the human body and are beneficial to it.

On the other hand, sequencing of the human genome's three billion base pairs has been completed, but only 2% of it encodes the more than 20,000 human genes. The remaining 98% is still a genetic mystery and has yet to be properly studied.

Shen Qi asked, "You all understand what specific work we need to do for the foundational research in the first stage of our project, right?"

"Understood!"

"Got it!"

"Can't wait to get started!"

"Let's get going!"

Everyone sprang into action, enthusiastically setting up the biology laboratory at the Shen Qi Research Center.

Biology and chemistry were closely connected. They could use the Chemistry Laboratory's stock of protective suits, fume hoods, basic chemicals, glassware, and equipment.

The hardware and software for gene sequencing and gene editing had to be purchased separately. With next-generation sequencing software and technologies such as CRISPR now widely used, their market prices had fallen considerably.

Han Meng knew how to get a lot done with little money. He