Question: Why do you only look at the specific bits of DNA that aren’t gene regions – the ‘gaps’?

Lilian Hunt answered on 11 Mar 2014:

Well it turns out that these gaps actually do contain some useful information. So while most people focus on the gene regions, the people in my lab like to look at the other bits, specifically ones that are actually the same in lots of different animals even though they aren’t actual genes themselves. These are quite likely to be important because lots of different animals have the same bits of DNA in these gaps. We’ve tested loads of these to try and wk out what they do and a lot of them actually control when and where the nearby genes are switched on and off in a developing embryo – the early stages of a baby in the womb. So while lots of people focus on the gene regions, we’ve taken on the task of focusing on the other bits!