Do materials have a genome, and if they do, what can be done with it?

Materials do not have a genome, yet for the past decade, and the next decade, in the USA, there has been a presidential and ter-agency funding initiative called the "Materials Genome Initiative (MGI)."This initiative has nothing to do with real genomes, materials, or otherwise. However, in this paper, we, somewhat whimsically, explore some ideas about what a material's gene could and how it could be used to further our understanding of materials structure and properties. The result is a slightly non-conventional, less crystal-centric, view of materials structure that we believe can, will, and is resulting in novel materials insights.