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Dna's Backstory: Deoxyribonucleic Acid

960 Words4 Pages

DNA, also known as deoxyribonucleic acid, is a type of nucleic acid that holds our genetic information. DNA, located inside a cell’s nucleus, is essentially what makes us and identifies us. This paper will explore DNA, from the time it was discovered to how it has impacted our lives. It will also explore the different scientists who helped contributed to our knowledge of DNA today, from Rosalind Franklin, the first person to see DNA, to James Watson and Francis Crick, who constructed the first model of DNA. Recent studies show how much of a difference there actually is in our DNA versus another person’s DNA. DNA is revolutionary in what we know about our body and its cells. Years of advancement on DNA was taken place, and it branched out further and is even able to be used in our modern society. Today, DNA is used for a wide variety of tasks that helped develop knowledge and research.
Keywords: DNA, Rosalind Franklin, Francis Crick, James Watson, advancement, revolutionary, modern
DNA’s Backstory: The Nucleic Acid Located in Every Human Cell
DNA, indubitably, is important to understand as it is essentially what makes us who …show more content…

Multiple scientists were trying to figure out DNA’s structure. One of these scientists was Rosalind Elsie Franklin, who was dedicated to researching DNA. She was the first person to see DNA itself. By using x-ray diffraction, Franklin was able to see the double-helix structure of DNA through an x-ray image. Rosalind Franklin took “Photo-51” which allowed Watson and Crick to confirm the helical structure of the DNA strand (Murnaghan, 2017). However, because she was a woman, she was not given credit for her discovery. This is because back then, people did not think that a woman could be of any importance or could contribute anything to science. Hence, the other scientists working with Franklin ended up stealing her work. Nonetheless, these discoveries were the stepping-stones of the future breakthrough on

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A DNA molecule is composed of two complementary chains of four different types of nucleotides. Although more than 99.9% length of the human DNA (nucleotide) sequence is shared by all individuals, the remaining one thousandth is highly variable and specific to each person. As long as DNA molecules can be extracted from a single piece of bone, then amplified to an amount enough to sequence them, the bone will be sufficient to figure out the identity information unique to few individuals within a large population, sometimes to a single person. Because of this technology, the judgment of a soldier’s death will not need statures estimation from lengths of limbs, age prediction with pelvic bones, dental comparison, but just an alignment of a string of letter code (nucleotide sequence in a DNA) obtained from his bones with those from his relatives (conventional methods still play supportive roles as a single type of DNA identification alone is insufficient to determine one soldier’s identity). A person’s identity is not just his height, sex, race, and age, but a long array of A, T, C, G (four types of

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Nevertheless, Franklin chose not to say so until more evidence proved so. Consequently, Watson and Crick were credited to solving the structure of DNA while Franklin and Wilkins remained merely as contributors to its discovery. While might doesn't always make right, Watson and Crick beat Franklin in her own study. It is sad to see the scientific community pride instant results over long and intense study. What is even sadder is the fact that Franklin died in 1958, four years before the Nobel Prize was awarded to Watson and Crick.

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Rosalind Franklin contributed substantially to the advancement of science and identified the true structure of deoxyribonucleic acids. This advancement helped modern biology by providing insights into the genetic code as well as the synthesis of protein. Even though Franklin was not acknowledged for her meaningful work during her life, we can celebrate her achievements today and the societal standards she broke by becoming an impressive female

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