Both genes help in building and transporting proteins and making sure they're in the right place in cell structure -- a process called RNA processing.

CNN: Gene linked to some cases of Lou Gehrig's disease found

It comes down to about 265-350 genes and the way they work together to build proteins and the other chemicals that form the organism's structure, metabolism and self-repair mechanisms could help us to fill in some major gaps in our biological knowledge.

BBC: Is life just genes?