Please note: This exhibit may be out of date, please visit our new Genetics online exhibit.

Finding a Sequence in the Genetic Haystack

If you wrote down all of the bases in one cell, you would fill a stack of 1,000 phone books with A's, T's, G's and C's. Scientists trying to locate small sections of DNA out of the whole genome have to flip through billions of bases to find what they want! Sometimes this takes years.

If you have the Shockwave plug-in, you can play "Search for the Sequence." with a very SMALL sequence.