genes are unit of identity in living organisms. they are the instruction manuals for our bodies. they are the directions for building all the proteins that make our bodies functions.

Genes are working subunits of DNA. DNA is a vast chemical information database that carries the complete set of instructions for making all the proteins a cell will ever need. Each gene contains a particular set of instructions, usually coding for a particular protein. DNA exists as two long, paired strands spiraled into the famous double helix. Each strand is made up of millions of chemical building blocks called bases. While there are only four different chemical bases in DNA (adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine), the order in which the bases occur determines the information available, much as specific letters of the alphabet combine to form words and sentences. DNA resides in the core, or nucleus, of each of the body's trillions of cells. Every human cell (with the exception of mature red blood cells, which have no nucleus) contains the same DNA. Each cell has 46 molecules of double-stranded DNA. Each molecule is made up of 50 to 250 million bases housed in a chromosome. The DNA in each chromosome constitutes many genes (as well as vast stretches of noncoding DNA, the function of which is unknown). A gene is any given segment along the DNA that encodes instructions that allow a cell to produce a specific product - typically, a protein such as an enzyme - that initiates one specific action. There are between 50,000 and 100,000 genes, and every gene is made up of thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of chemical bases. Human cells contain two sets of chromosomes, one set inherited from the mother and one from the father. (Mature sperm and egg cells carry a single set of chromosomes.) Each set has 23 single chromosomes - 22 autosomes and an X or Y sex chromosome. (Females inherit an X from each parent, while males get an X from the mother and a Y from the father.)

In addition to the nuclear DNA your cells also contain DNA located in a subcellular organelle called the mitochondria. You inherit your mitochondria from you mother via the egg. This organelle contains genes of its own primarily for energy production. The combination of nuclear DNA and mitochondrial DNA comprise your genome.

"A gene is a hereditary unit consisting of DNA that occupies a spot on a chromosome and determines a characteristic in an organism." "A gene is a segment of a DNA molecule on a chromosome." This quote and an introduction to genetics here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Genetics Here a more technical article about genes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene