Animal genes

Your genes are 98 per cent similar to a chimpanzee's, and you share 75 per cent of your genetic information with a mouse. As you are so similar to many other animals, scientists can study the genes of other living things to try and find out what some human genes do. Even studying genes in yeast can shed light on what happens in the 100 million million cells that make up your body.

Human (H) next to chimp (C) chromosomes showing their remarkable similarity. Fengtang Yang, Patricia O'Brien, Malcolm Ferguson-Smith, University of Cambridge