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Genomics has changed the research paradigm

 1) Scale: The combination of new technologies and the volume of data available allows for experimentation on a previously unimaginable scale (for example, whole genomes at once).

Microarray chips like this can now be made to contain >300,000 elements (DNA or RNA segments, for example) per cm2, which allows a whole genome to be viewed at once (e.g., at one time point or in response to a particular stimulus etc.)
 

2) Perspective: Making possible "systems" approaches to biological questions by integrating various kinds of information (sequence, function, expression, gene networks and structure, etc.) from a whole genome or even genomes from different organisms.
 

 

 Resulting in new approaches to experimental science....

 One development, as predicted by Michelmore (2000) and others, has been that some hypotheses can be derived and even tested in silico.

 "Testing of hypotheses will still require detailed phenotyping, but experimental studies will access a broad range of new tools capable of global analyses ... rather than a gene-by-gene or protein-by-protein approach." Michelmore, R. 2000. Current Opinion in Plant Biology 3: 125-131.