prolog

1.
Imagining Genes: The Invention of Genes
2.
Entering the cell: Genes on the chromosomes inside the cell…?
3.
Into the Abyss: The World of Molecules
4.
What is a gene?: Is the genetic material protein or DNA?
5.
Genes Must Be That Way: Schrödinger's Definition of Genes
6. The Identity of DNA: Schrödinger's Gene Is Hidden in the Structure of DNA
7.
Closer!: Digital Information Discovered in DNA
8.
The Great Victory: Discovering the Genetic Principles of Genes, the Genetic Program that Creates Life
9.
Lost: Genes are everywhere
10.
The truth we face at the bottom: there's almost nothing there.
11.
Escape: The Lost Gene
12.
On the way back…: What is the information of living things?

Epilogue

The emergence of a science-themed comic series that never existed in Korea
A masterpiece born from Korea, a wasteland of basic science!

Due to the high barriers to entry in the scientific field, there are not many authors who can directly create drawings and stories to convey academic messages.
This is true not only in Korea but also around the world.
For this reason, when the author's previous work appeared in bookstores, the scientific community also greatly welcomed the author's birth.
This is evidenced by the fact that it was selected as a general education book of various titles and that it was exhibited at science museums, which is an unprecedented event for a science book.
The author's ultimate goal in publishing this book is to complete the "Express Series," a series of "scientific history books by topic in one volume."
The birth of a graphic novel series that will present the truly long and complex history of science through a captivating story and solid academic foundations will be a small but meaningful change in the Korean science bestseller landscape, which is dominated by translated works, and will be a significant event that will bring many readers who have not easily accessed science books to bookshelves.

The author, who won the 54th Korea Publishing Culture Award in the liberal arts writing category for his previous work, Amazing Gravity (2012, published by Gungri), warns against the “gene omnipotence” that is believed to be a keyword that determines human life, such as the obesity gene or the homosexual gene, and helps us to understand genes in a macroscopic flow, breaking away from the limited knowledge fixed in the double helix.
This book, which has received 'enthusiastic' recommendations from various scholars in the scientific community, including Professor Woojae Kim of the University of Ottawa, a renowned fruit fly geneticist, and Professor Seongwook Hong of the Department of Life Sciences at Seoul National University, will provide a time of intellectual exploration for readers who enjoy reading books in the field of science, and as Director Jeongmo Lee of the Seoul Metropolitan Science Museum said in his recommendation, 'if young people read it, they will be able to gain enlightenment at least 30 years younger than their senior scientists.'


Are genes matter or order?
Tracing the reality of the genome, which transmits traits from one generation to the next without any error.

The book covers the academic challenges and failures of scholars who wrote the history of genes, from Mendel, the first biologist to statistically prove the laws of heredity, to Morgan, who traced the locations of traits through persistent and repetitive experiments, to Watson and Crick, who discovered the structure of DNA.
Genes, which had been defined by various names such as 'blueprints containing the information of life' or 'books containing human information', seemed to have their true nature clearly revealed through the 'Genome Project', which sequenced all 3 billion human base pairs.
However, the book emphasizes that the history of genetics, which ushered in a golden age at the same time as its discovery, is actually a history of failure rather than success.
In fact, the research of many scientists who seemed to have reached a clear truth about genes ended up proving only partial facts and faced bigger problems and questions.
As you read the book, you will notice that the identity of genes, which encode the information of living things, is not a narrow concept that can be limited to a few substances.
The book's title, "Genome Express," avoids the mistake of packaging the partial discovery of genes into a whole, but instead provides a fascinating glimpse into the entire scientific journey surrounding genes.
Through this, readers will be able to gain scientific insights comparable to those of experts through a single book.

Academic praise poured in

The value of this book is all the more remarkable because science in Korea is still unstable and unsettled.
It is a blessing for the Korean scientific community that a book of this caliber can be published in Korea, a wasteland of basic science.
The journey to genetics is not over.
You can tell by looking at the last page of the book.
I'm already curious about the author's next journey in biology.
- Woojae Kim (Drosophila geneticist, professor of cellular and molecular sciences at the University of Ottawa)

Genome Express is a major event.
This book goes beyond simply telling you what genes are.
It shows what questions scholars from Aristotle to Schrödinger asked about the nature of life and the flow of life information, and how physicists and biologists sought to answer those questions.
The author demonstrates through history that science is not about information but about questions, and not about efficiency but about attitude.
This is a book that teachers and scientists must read 'from beginning to end'.
If young people read this book, they will gain enlightenment at least 30 years younger than their senior scientists.
- Lee Jeong-mo (Director of Seoul Science Museum)

Children resemble their parents.
But after a long time, the descendants change so that they do not resemble their ancestors at all.
Today's scenery is no different from yesterday's.
But time destroys everything.
Except that there will still be living, breathing creatures there.
This is a miracle.
The paradox of descendants resembling their parents yet not resembling them makes possible the miracle that life still exists even though everything has changed.
If you're curious about this miracle of contradiction, I recommend taking a peek at the backseat of the author's "genetic exploration team."
The moment you realize that we exist within our genes, yet are not within our genes, you too will realize the true meaning of living like yesterday, yet different from yesterday.
- Eunhee Lee (science communicator, author of the "Harihara" series)

In his previous work, "Amazing Gravity," the author dynamically depicted how gravity becomes a tangible entity, then is reinterpreted as the effect of curved space. In this book, the author traces the history of genes, which have repeatedly been hidden and revealed for over a century since Darwin and Mendel. Through the story of genes, which were first revealed as a specific base sequence in DNA, and then, just when scientists thought they had understood genes and unlocked the secrets of life, they vainly slipped away from our grasp, the author shows that while genes are a useful concept for understanding the phenomenon of heredity, they are merely a "model" that cannot encompass all of heredity.
This book is excellent as a popular science book that challenges the vulgar "genetic determinism," but it also offers insightful interpretations of the history and philosophy of science.
I highly recommend this book to readers seeking to understand the essence of life, genetics.
- Hong Seong-wook (Professor of Life Sciences, Seoul National University, History of Science)

Having taught various biology classes at Minjok History High School, the author said he thought he understood why students found the concept of genes in textbooks difficult.
This is because, over time, the concepts called genes since Morgan proposed them in 1927 have all referred to different physical entities.
The realization that genes are both physical entities composed of DNA and, at the same time, individual answers to various questions about genetic phenomena will be a great reward for the author's painstaking efforts in completing this book.
The author believes that the ending of this book is the true beginning of the reality of heredity, and that answers can only be found through the evolution of living things.
So, he completely forgot all about the hardships he went through while writing this book, and he is a natural science cartoonist who hides clues for the next book at the end of the book.
- Na Jong-wook (Vice Principal, Biology Teacher, Minjok History High School)