Without a good plan, we'll be at it for decades. Here's what I think genomic researchers should do.
Genes (and proteins) are obviously organized hierarchically. Which means there must be a control hierarchy in there somewhere. To unravel and properly classify the genome, researchers must first identify and understand the hierarchical control system. Only then can they begin to populate the branches with the correct genes.
After the tree is completely built and all the genes have found their correct locations on the tree, then it's a matter of going through the tree from the top down and switching the branches of the tree off/on one at a time to see what happens. It's hard but it can be done.
Unfortunately there doesn't have to be "a" control hierarchy: each subsystem can have its own hierarchy (or none) that uses its own unique control mechanisms, they don't have to operate by the same rules, they can mess with each other by lots of different ad hoc means. And that's just the genes: the proteins are much harder to model, at least as far as useful predictions go.
It's been ad hoc with no code review for over 3 billion years.
Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/_isTiaYnkK8/story01.htm
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