Explore the history and evolution of sequence alignment in this comprehensive colloquium talk. Delve into the fundamentals of RNA-Seq technology and its applications in biomedical research. Learn about key algorithms like BLAST, Needleman-Wunsch, and Smith-Waterman, as well as modern pseudo-alignment methods for transcript-level quantification. Discover the connections between sequence alignment and evolutionary genetics, and gain insights into hidden Markov models and their role in bioinformatics. The speaker also touches on the emerging field of applied category theory in organizing ideas within this domain. Engage with a detailed exploration of topics including central dogma, mutations, global vs. local alignment, and multiple sequence alignment, concluding with a Q&A session.