Essay About General Public And American Geneticists

Dna:the Molecule of Heredity
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Autor: reviewessays 24 October 2010
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DNA is a term that has been used in science as well as in many parts of daily
life. The general public knows that DNA is a part of our bodies but they may
wonder what exactly is DNA? DNA is a term used for deoxyribonucleic acid and it
is the genetic material of all organisms, it is the molecule of life and it
determines all of our physical characteristics. DNA is present in every single
form of life. More than 50 years after the science of genetics was established
and the patterns of inheritance were clarified, the largest questions remained
unanswered: How are the chromosomes and their genes copied exactly from cell to
cell, and how do they direct the structure and behavior of living things?
Two American geneticists, George Wells Beadle and Edward Lawrie Tatum, provided
one of the first important clues in the early 1940s. Working with the fungi
Neurospora and Penicillium, they found that “genes direct the formation of
enzymes through the units of which they are composed.” (Annas) Each unit, a
polypeptide is produced by a specific gene. This establish the field of
molecular genetics.