Mapping out a genetic blueprint involves determining several short sections that would make up a gene, and sequencing those in bulk. Then, scientists take all of those pieces and put them together like a puzzle—a difficult puzzle, according to Dan Rokhsar, the computational biology leader at the U.S. DOE Joint Genome Institute in Walnut Creek, Calif. “
There are parts of the genome that are very complicated to assemble,” Rokhsar says. “Think of them as large stretches of blue sky in a puzzle, with wispy clouds throughout. So, you have to use that cloud information to put together those regions of the genome.” As the puzzle starts to take shape, he says the reconstruction of entire genes and eventually whole chromosomes takes place.
The rest of the story appears here.