Do you think we're going to see more or less genomics research in coming years? End of discussion.

Illumina (NASDAQ: ILMN) is the leading provider of equipment for genomics researchers and its lead is growing. Buy and hold may be almost dead, but it certainly applies to ILMN. The stock has been trashed along with the market, but it's simply the best at what it does - and getting better.

Your best strategy for life-changing profits?

This is a stock to buy for the long term to use as a base for selling calls. Or, even better, you can write some credit spreads, as the calls have terrific premiums.

Don't miss the complete list of biotech stocks to buy now.

And for more ways to profit, check out:

• The Best Cheap Stocks to Buy Now
• 5 Ways Twitter Can Make You a Better Trader

Cerus Corp. (NASDAQ: CERS) is a real company with real revenues, but no profits yet, and could be at a $50 million revenue run rate in 2010.

It is a pioneer in something called "pathogen inactivation" -- a technology that cleans blood, making blood banks almost completely indifferent to the health of donors. It's the perfect system in the age of AIDS, bird flu and other infectious disease. Cerus' INTERCEPT Blood System is currently sold in 18 countries, and a potential major catalyst is an expedited approval process in the United States.

The stock is trading around a buck -- down from nearly $8 about a year ago -- and it could be worth $10 in a couple of years.

Your best strategy for life-changing profits?

Buy the stock and wait. You may be waiting a while, but this is a solid company with a real product and profits, and stock appreciation should come in the next two years. Make that big-time appreciation.

Next: Biotech Stock #6

Curis (NASDAQ: CRIS) is a speculative stock -- no approved product and no revenue -- that, in former markets, would sell for $10 - $12. It is now around a buck and a half, after doubling in the past few months.

CRIS focuses on cancer treatments, and is partnered with Genentech/Roche. It has a new therapy for basal cell carcinoma in mid-stage trials. The results appear very promising. In fact, they are so promising that Genentech is treating this as the last trial needed before seeking FDA approval.

This stock is a potential 10- to 20-bagger with an FDA approval in 2011 or so. And the company is on the verge of licensing a new molecule that could be a big catalyst for the stock in the short term.

Your best strategy for life-changing profits?

Buy CRIS now. (In the interest of full disclosure, I own a lot of CRIS.)

Next: Biotech Stock #5

When my son had a huge boil under his arm, it turned out that it was filled with the killer staph, MRSA. It also turns out that my (otherwise) great doctor used a traditional lab to process the test, which took a week to determine it was MRSA.

Cepheid (NASDAQ: CPHD) manufactures the equipment and test that takes just two hours to do the same thing -- and is better and cheaper than traditional tests. CPHD wins 90%-plus of all competitive bids and its test could be available in low-tech facilities, such as doctor's offices or nursing homes, next year.

The big catalyst for this stock, however, is that Medicare will stop paying for all hospital-acquired infections except MRSA in October. So institutions need a quick test if they are going to be reimbursed for treatment.

The stock has fallen from $30 to under $9. It's worth $20 - $22 to an acquirer.

Your best strategy for life-changing profits?

Buy the call options.

Next: Biotech Stock #4

Imagine a company with 90%-plus margins and huge cashflow that uses its cash to carefully expand its business and buy back stock -- with a P/E under 8! That's Questcor Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: QCOR).

QCOR has a treatment that is approved for spasms from multiple sclerosis, but is mostly used to treat radical infantile spasms that kill or retard babies.

Your best strategy for life-changing profits?

Buy the stock and wait for it to appreciate or for the company to get bought out. You could also buy the (illiquid) options, or buy the stock and sell the calls.

Next: Biotech Stock #3

Few would argue with the claim that Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ: GILD) is the best-managed biopharma company on the planet.

It dominates the HIV treatment market and gets a 19%-plus royalty on Tamiflu, which is used to treat H1N1 (swine) flue. Gilead also has several drugs on or headed for the market to treat pulmonary disease and hard-to-treat high blood pressure.

Your best strategy for life-changing profits?

Buy the stock and sell the calls (then use the cash to buy puts on the market, which is headed down further.) Or buy long-term calls and keep an eye on them.

Next: Biotech Stock #2

Last year, as the market sank, one group actually went up -- large-cap, cashflow positive biotech and genomics companies.

This year, interest has shifted to the little guys -- the speculative biotech stocks that could be 10- or 20-baggers with one breakthrough.

Here are six biotech stocks with the potential to deliver life-changing profits:

Biotech Stock #1: Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ: GILD)
Biotech Stock #2: Questcor Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: QCOR)

Biotech Stock #3: Cepheid (NASDAQ: CPHD)
Biotech Stock #4: Curis (NASDAQ: CRIS)
Biotech Stock #5: Cerus Corp. (NASDAQ: CERS)
Biotech Stock #6: Illumina (NASDAQ: ILMN)

Despite its recent successes at negotiating new contracts and its refusal, so far, to accept government funds, when General Motors (NYSE: GM) goes into Chapter 11, Ford (NYSE: F) will have to do the same to remain competitive.

Given the ferocity of this downturn, if it didn't accept government handouts, it would probably end up in some form of forced re-organization anyway.

Real shareholder value: zero

Michael Shulman is a contributor to OptionsZone.com.

This is a ridiculous company with an even more ridiculous management group. General Motors' (NYSE: GM) cars are mediocre, its union contracts are incredibly extravagant in a brutally competitive industry, and management seems to think we are still in the 1950s.

Recently, the company's auditors raised even more concerns about the automaker's ability to survive without more loans from the government.

GM's own forecast assumes survival based on a car market that is larger in 2013 than it was in 2006. Yeah, right.

True shareholder value: zero

Michael Shulman is a contributor to OptionsZone.com.

Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) CEO John Stumpf drank from the same watercooler as Bank of America's (NYSE: BAC) Ken Lewis when he bought Wachovia and its $70 billion-plus in option ARMs.

It will survive, but it has no room to grow due to upcoming write-offs -- three to five years' worth at a minimum.

Real shareholder value: a lot less than the current stock price

Michael Shulman is a contributor to OptionsZone.com.

This may be the first place you read about JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) being a zombie.

It speaks, and occasionally thinks, but it holds toxic mortgages, specifically something called option adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs), it acquired when it bought Washington Mutual.

The company's ability to grow will be constrained for three to five years minimum.

True shareholder value: considerably less than its current price

Michael Shulman is a contributor to OptionsZone.com.

I lump these zombies -- our first zombies -- together because everyone else does.

You and I are now the proud owner of these lifeless monsters, which have hundreds of billions of dollars in obligations on mortgages of declining quality.

What's more, for political reasons, their future will not be resolved for several years.

True shareholder value: zero

Michael Shulman is a contributor to OptionsZone.com.

Citigroup (NYSE: C) has more toxic assets than the landfills around the New Jersey Turnpike. Its balance sheet is a wreck, and its off-balance sheet assets of mostly unknown quality are up to $1.2 trillion.

The government is the largest shareholder in the company, and Citi will eventually have to break itself up, a process that began with the placement of its brokerage arm into a joint venture with Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS).

True shareholder value: zero

Michael Shulman is a contributor to InvestorPlace.com.

In the past year, Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) CEO Ken Lewis lost his mind and bought not just failed mortgage company Countrywide, but failing investment bank Merrill Lynch, killing his shareholders and turning his company into the largest zombie bank around.

Forget his bravado -- the company has huge problems and is fast becoming a ward of the state.

True shareholder value: maybe a buck

Michael Shulman is a contributor to InvestorPlace.com.

AIG (NYSE: AIG) is being kept alive because of huge obligations created through derivatives it sold. And this once-great insurance company is now being broken up, limb by limb.

The eventual taxpayer loss could endow enough colleges to permanently create half a million tuition-free slots for students or pay for health insurance for every American doing without.

True shareholder value: zero

Michael Shulman is a contributor to InvestorPlace.com.