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DNA contains the genetic information that allows all forms of life to function, grow and reproduce. However, it is unclear how long in the 4-billion-year history of life DNA has performed this function, as it has been proposed that the earliest forms of life may have used RNA as their genetic material.
Efforts to understand how proteins are encoded began after DNA's structure was discovered in 1953. The key discoverers, English biophysicist Francis Crick and American biologist James Watson, working together at the Cavendish Laboratory of the University of Cambridge, hypothesied that information flows from DNA and that there is a link between DNA and proteins. [2]
A section of DNA; the sequence of the plate-like units (nucleotides) in the center carries information. Genes are pieces of DNA that contain information for the synthesis of ribonucleic acids (RNAs) or polypeptides. Genes are inherited as units, with two parents dividing out copies of their genes to their offspring.
The cell is the basic structural and functional unit of all forms of life. Every cell consists of cytoplasm enclosed within a membrane; many cells contain organelles, each with a specific function. The term comes from the Latin word cellula meaning 'small room'. Most cells are only visible under a microscope.
The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race is a non-fiction book authored by American historian and journalist Walter Isaacson. Published in March 2021 by Simon & Schuster , it is a biography of Jennifer Doudna , the winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her work on the CRISPR system of gene ...
Life functions through the specialized chemistry of carbon and water, and builds largely upon four key families of chemicals: lipids for cell membranes, carbohydrates such as sugars, amino acids for protein metabolism, and nucleic acid DNA and RNA for the mechanisms of heredity. Any successful theory of abiogenesis must explain the origins and ...
Hershey–Chase experiment. The Hershey–Chase experiments were a series of experiments conducted in 1952 [1] by Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase that helped to confirm that DNA is genetic material. While DNA had been known to biologists since 1869, [2] many scientists still assumed at the time that proteins carried the information for ...
DNA and RNA codon tables. The standard RNA codon table organized in a wheel. A codon table can be used to translate a genetic code into a sequence of amino acids. [1][2] The standard genetic code is traditionally represented as an RNA codon table, because when proteins are made in a cell by ribosomes, it is messenger RNA (mRNA) that directs ...