What is the genome? What kind of variation characterizes it? How is each individual shaped by the molecular peculiarity of their genome? How important are genomic variations for the emergence of genetic diseases and the manifestation of predisposition to clinical conditions and characteristics? What is the genetic background of diseases? Can their appearance be interpreted evolutionarily? Is cancer a genomic disease? And ultimately, how important for health and disease are the insights we gain from the genome?

The book you hold in your hands addresses all these —important for the life of each individual, as well as for the entire human species— questions and attempts to provide answers based on the knowledge we have today. The book utilizes approximately fifty short stories as examples, aimed at helping the reader better understand the wonderful world of the genome, but also to serve as a springboard for further inquiry and information.

In the pursuit of understanding the hidden truth, scientific knowledge is constantly enriched, revised, and sometimes leads to common grounds — always through fruitful debate. The stories in the book are based on the knowledge we have today; however, as Shakespeare says in The Tempest: "What’s past is prologue." This edition, therefore, is delivered to the reading public with a sense of awe — the awe that arises from the degree of our ignorance.