You know what would be interesting, though probably also flawed? Looking at mRNA. The reason DNA wouldn't work that well is because a lot of DNA we have isn't

You know what would be interesting, though probably also flawed? Looking at mRNA. The reason DNA wouldn't work that well is because a lot of DNA we have isn't actually coded into the traits we present. I think this is what happens at a fairly abstract level: DNA -> RNA(whole) -> Splicing out of non coding (introns?) portions of the RNA -> RNA(coding) -> some more pre-processing -> mRNA -> Proteins Those proteins are most likely what help us look the way we do. So going a step back, mRNA could be an interesting target for understanding what genes are actually on and coding how we look. An obvious flaw from the get go: mRNA is extremely difficult to extract from human tissue. Yields are super low in laboratories, and is consistently an issue in molecular biology research. And you'd have to design a primer to amplify the amount you obtain, that matches up with every strand of mRNA necessary to get a good idea of what someone would look like. Not to mention there's probably some step I'm missing in this process that would affect the role of mRNA. Something like microRNAs, maybe?