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PREFACE Genetics is one of the fastest developing modern life sciences. None of the sciences does have so strong influence on the development of other scientific disciplines, both natural and social. Geneticists actively cooperate with scientists and specialists of agricultural sciences, medical professionals, anthropologists, paleontologists, chemists, physicists, mathematicians, computer specialists and so on. The results of this scientific cooperation make a huge contribution to the development of all sciences. Simultaneously, the interpenetration of technical terms and concepts is going on, and they must be differentiated. The process of forming a special vocabulary is continuous and is in constant development, corresponding to the progress of related scientific disciplines. Consequently, the dictionaries must be constantly revised and updated with new definitions, which became or is becoming the usual scientific and industrial practice. The first edition of this dictionary of the genetical terms was published 11 years ago. During this time the human genome has been read, Drosophila, yeast and other organisms; the modern biotechnology is developing very fast, including the use of more and more progressive genetic techniques – all of them are significant achievements in genetics. The 2nd edition includes terms, symbols, concepts, which cover various branches of modern genetics and biotechnology. In addition, the dictionary contains a considerable number of terms from allied fields of biological sciences (general biology, botany, taxonomy, biochemistry, physiology, etc.), as well as from some non-biological disciplines (statistics) used in genetic research. Another important aspect of the dictionary is that you can use it as a conversion of RussianBelarusian-English and English-Russian-Belarusian dictionary of genetic terms; it is very important from the standpoint of representation abroad research results obtained in our country, for a better understanding of the foreign articles in English as well as updating and development of the Belarusian scientific terminology in the field of biological (genetical) sciences. The illustrative material presented by figures defines the most complicated molecular and genetical processes. At the end of the main vocabulary an English-Russian-Belarusian dictionary of genetic terms was placed to convert fast terms in Russian. During the work on this publication, the authors used the dictionaries published as books and electronic versions, as well as terms proposed by some authors in the articles published in scientific journals. The proposed dictionary of genetic terms will be useful for specialists in the field of genetics and allied biological sciences and also for students and lecturers at high schools and universities, for anyone interested in genetics. The authors are grateful to the scientific adviser – Academician L. V. Khotyleva, and the reviewers: Dr. Biol. Sc. N. P. Maksimova, Dr. Biol. Sc. S. B. Melnov and Dr. Biol. Sc. S. E. Dromashko – for valuable comments and advices that helped improve the vocabulary. In the 2nd edition of the dictionary comments made after its first publication had been taken into account, some articles were revised and some new ones were added. The authors will be grateful to the users of the dictionary for remarks and wishes which are to be sent to the address: Institute of Genetics and Cytology of National Academy of Sciences of Belarus 27 Akademicheskaya st. 220072 Minsk, Belarus Tel.: +375 (17) 284-02-97, 284-18-48 Fax: +375 (17) 284-19-17 E-mail: N.Kartel@igc.bas-net.by; E.Makeyeva@igc.bas-net.by