DNA is the molecule within living things which controls how they develop. It is the blueprint for proteins which control everything that happens within cells and, as a result, organisms. This blueprint, made up of genes, is known as the organism’s ‘genome’. In recent years scientists have been able to look at all the genes that make up the genome and start to unravel what each gene does. This technique is called ‘genomics’.
Genomics will have many important practical applications and holds immense promise for industry. Companies that will benefit include those involved in pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, agriculture, medical imaging and information technology.
The Research Councils have been working collaboratively on genomics since the late 1990s. The Cross-Council Genomics Co-coordinating Committee (CCGCC) was set up in 1999 to oversee the research funded by the Councils. The committee contained members from BBSRC,MRC, EPSRC, NERC, ESRC, STFC, along with other government departments. This resulted in the funding of several large successful research initiatives, the establishment of numerous dedicated research centres, and a combined investment of £236M over the four years from 2000-2002. By 2008 the field of genomics had become successfully embedded in the research strategies of all councils and so continued monitoring by the CCGCC was not considered necessary.
The CCGCC organised two one day meetings, in December 2005 and February 2006, to consider the impact of the genomics funding and the direction in which it believed genomics was taking research and society as a whole. The first meeting was held with senior representatives of different research areas, with presentations from key scientists. The second was a discussion day, involving many of the attendees from the first meeting and additionally other stakeholders as well as UK representatives of non-Research Council supported areas. The “Current and Future Developments in Genomics” document summarizes the outcomes of that consideration and is available for download here 
For more general information, download the Demystifying Genomics
(Published in June 2000)