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Your genetic material, the stuff that determines how you are constructed, resides in your DNA (Dioxiribose Nucleic Acid). All of the cells in your body (with a couple of exceptions, like the red blood cells and the germ line) contain a complete set of your DNA in the cell nucleus. The individual strands of DNA are called chromosomes. Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes. Other animals (and plants) have different numbers.

http://chrom5.hsis.uci.edu/ A large research project that you may have heard of is called the Human Genome Project (e.g., take this link to see the centre for Human Genome Research at the University of California, Irvine, just one of the many research facilities world-wide that is studying this issue). The purpose of this project, which has been running for years, and will continue to run for years, is to map out the complete sequence of human DNA (that is, the human genome). "Mapping out" the DNA means to determine the sequence of all the genes on all the chromosomes. Flip to the next slide and we'll talk about genes.