Let There Be Life: Researchers Created Brand New Kind of Working DNA

Posted: Published on May 14th, 2014

This post was added by Dr P. Richardson

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) -- helical polymers of nucleic acids attached to a phosphate backbone -- is the blueprint of all life on Earth. From humans to even some lowly parasitic viruses (essentially bundles of DNA looking for a host), DNA is used daily to encode ribonucleic acid (RNA), which in turn are used to make the proteins that regulate life as we know it. I. It's Life Jim, But Not as We Know It In 1953, Rosalind Franklin and Raymond Gosling photographed double-helical DNA, offering a final conclusive proof of life's genetic code. James Watson and Francis Crick, a pair of famous biologists, popularized the finding. Life as we know it is produce by combinations of two kinds of base-pairs:

An unnatural base pair is seen here aside a natural base pair (dC-dG). [Image Source: Nature]

These organisms cannot survive outside the laboratory. Personally, I think its a less dangerous way to modify DNA.

Source: Nature [journal paper]

See more here:
Let There Be Life: Researchers Created Brand New Kind of Working DNA

Related Posts
This entry was posted in DNA. Bookmark the permalink.

Comments are closed.