Genomics

Genomics involves the acquisition and analysis of the DNA and/or RNA of organisms, including microorganisms. Incredible advances in sequencing technologies have taken place in the 15 years since the first edition of this book was written, with the cost of sequencing a single bacterial organism dropping from nearly $100,000 to < $100. This has led to an equally astonishing increase in genomic data, forcing the development of software to scale rapidly to attempt to keep up with it. There is little reason to believe that this trend will slow in the next 15 years, which means that the entire field of microbial forensics will have to evolve rapidly to match the information flow.