The genes of a cell are like the notes of a musical instrument. How and when they are activated is what defines the music of life for that cell. And all the cells in a body, each one playing its own song and interacting with the music around it, make a symphony. The symphony of life.
We can listen to the music of each cell by measuring it's expression profile at a particular time. By listening to that music, we can learn many details--not only about the nature of that cell, but also about its environment. Because of the value of localized mapping of the expression profile and because of the size of that undertaking, I believe that over time the amount of nucleotide sequencing done to explore genomes will be dwarfed by the amount done to listen to the details of life's symphony.
My name is Doug Bradshaw. I'm a physicist, a writer, and a programmer. And my quest, beginning now, is to come to understand the data that biologists are generating using RNA-Seq (and other expression profiling tools) and to use that data to come to a better understanding of the music of life. As an important part of that quest, I will also begin developing tools that will help me and others to continue to grow in that understanding.
