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A major effort is currently being invested in various genomes, in the characterisation and application of Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs). These point mutations account for most of the genetic variation among individuals and thus promise important advances in medical and evolutionary genetics. NCBI's dbSNP currently contains 4,540,241 validated human entries, out of which, 45,896 are non-synonymous coding SNPs. The two main applications of SNPs as genetic markers are in biodiversity studies and in identification of gene s function. The study of genome polymorphism is highly important and has both basic and applied impacts. SNPs offer advantages for such study due to their abundance in the genome and their suitability for large-scale screening using high throughput methods.
About the author
Giora Ben-Ari is currently a researcher at the Institute of Plant Sciences in the Agricultural Research Organization, Israel. He recived his Ph.D. at the Hebrew University at 2005. He then moved to the University of Toronto for a postdoc period at the lab of Dr. Mike Tyers until he got his current position at the end of 2008.
