Genome Blends Gene and Chromosome

A genome is the complete set of genetic material in an organism. The word was coined in 1920 by the German botanist Hans Winkler, blending *gene* with *chromosome*. The human genome contains roughly three billion base pairs and around twenty thousand protein-coding genes — far fewer than scientists expected before it was sequenced.

• An organism's genetic material. *The human genome.*
• Genomic — relating to genomes. *Genomic data.*
• Genomics — the study of genomes. *A career in genomics.*

Word forms

How it is used in a sentence

• The human genome was sequenced by 2003.A first draft came in 2001.
• We have about twenty thousand genes.Fewer than a water flea.
• Genome means gene plus chromosome.A 1920 coinage.

Genome facts

• Three billion base pairs — in a human genome
• About 20,000 genes — coding for proteins
• Most is non-coding — once called junk, now known to be partly regulatory
• Sequenced in 2003 — the Human Genome Project
• Cost — the first genome cost billions; sequencing one now costs a few hundred

Coined in German in 1920 by Hans Winkler, blending *Gen* and *Chromosom*. *Gene* itself comes from Greek *genos*, birth or kind.