Genomics has a language of its own, but it does not need to remain a language reserved for specialists.
Words such as DNA, genes, variants, sequencing, exomes, whole genomes, CRISPR, polygenic risk, inheritance, ancestry and microbiomes describe different pieces of how life is organized, read and understood.
This guide gathers the book’s most important terms in one place. Return to it whenever a concept feels unfamiliar or two similar ideas begin to blur together. Scientific vocabulary is not a barrier to the subject; once understood, it becomes a toolkit for reading, remembering and discussing genomics with greater confidence.