Can butterflies and moths reveal the underpinnings of all life, even our own lives as humans? Nick Grishin, Ph.D., is a lepidopterist (someone who studies butterflies or moths). Through his research, his ambitious goal is to decipher and categorize the genetic underpinnings of life. Dr. Grishin, a Professor of Biophysics and Biochemistry, discusses the modern computational methods he uses to build genetic maps of the moths and butterflies he studies. These tools help identify the proteins that genes encode and the ways those proteins function in different species.