The Human Genome Project has spawned a whole new field of research on the biochemistry of the human body. In 1994, Dr. Mark Wilson coined the word “proteome” combining proteins and genome. Proteomes are a collection of proteins found in a particular cell type which tell the cell what to do. Genes determine many of the characteristics of an organism, and they do so by providing instructions for making proteins which are the building blocks and workhorses of the cells. Dr. Akhilesh Pandey of Johns Hopkins University and founder and director of the Institute of Bioinformatics explained this as follows: “You can think of the human body as a huge library where each protein is a book. The difficulty is that we don't have a comprehensive catalog that gives us the titles of the available books and where to find them.”
Pandey's team has identified proteins encoded by 17,294 genes which is about 84% of all the genes in the human genome. In their research Pandey's team found 193 proteins whose data patterns did not fit any cell's coding. These have been labeled “noncoding.” Pandey says this “means we don't fully understand how cells read DNA.” He goes on to say that the human proteome is so extensive and complex that the researchers' catalog of it will never be fully complete.
If we think of the human body as a library and each protein as a book, it should be pretty obvious that this is not the result of any chance process. Libraries are complex and designed and require great skill and organizing ability. Books are written by people with intelligence — they are not a chance collection of words. Being able to cure genetic diseases means learning how to read the books recorded in the library. God has written more than one book. His instruction book for us, the Bible, shows the same complexity and intelligence that we see in the genome. It reminds of us David's statement, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well” (Psalm 139:14). Source: John Hopkins Medicine via http://www.biosciencetechnology.com/news/2014/05/human-proteome-project-finds-193-previously-unknown-proteins?type=cta.
Picture credits:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Animal_cell_structure_en.svg