Related topics: dna

A new approach to amplifying DNA

Analyzing DNA is useful for a number of vital applications. This includes diagnosis and monitoring of diseases, identification of criminals, and studying the function of a targeted segment of DNA. However, methods used for ...

Electrons use DNA like a wire for signaling DNA replication

In the early 1990s, Jacqueline Barton, the John G. Kirkwood and Arthur A. Noyes Professor of Chemistry at Caltech, discovered an unexpected property of DNA—that it can act like an electrical wire to transfer electrons quickly ...

How breaks in DNA are repaired

A team of researchers from the biology department at TU Darmstadt has discovered that the processes for repairing DNA damage are far more complex than previously assumed. The ends of breaks in the double helix are not just ...

Hijacking the double helix for replication

For years, scientists have puzzled over what prompts the intertwined double-helix DNA to open its two strands and then start replication. Knowing this could be the key to understanding how organisms - from healthy cells to ...

Engineers make nanoscale 'muscles' powered by DNA

The base pairs found in DNA are key to its ability to store protein-coding information, but they also give the molecule useful structural properties. Getting two complementary strands of DNA to zip up into a double helix ...

New switch decides between genome repair and death of cells

The genetic information of every cell is encoded in the sequence of the DNA double helix. Double strand breaks in the DNA, which can be induced by radiation, are a dangerous threat to the cells, and if not properly repaired ...

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