Richard Crooks's Website
About Genetics
Genetics is the science of the instructions that are used to build and replicate lifeforms. Life as we know it uses DNA, or RNA, if viruses are considered to be alive, as an information storage medium, and this molecule is read by various pieces of cellular machinery in order to produce the proteins, tissues and whole organisms that the DNA is the instructions for.
Genetics, as the science of the instructions of life, has a massive importance to the modern understanding of biology, and is becoming increasingly important in healthcare and the emerging field of biotechnology.
Crick's dogma is a description of how information from DNA is transcribed to produce RNA, and further translated to produce protein. It is this process that links genes to their function.
The genetic information in organisms like humans and plants is contained within chromosomes. These help to condense the long DNA sequences for thousands of genes and store them in an organized and compact was in the cell nucleus.
The earliest description of genetic inheritance, described by a monk, Gregor Mendel, is known as Mendelian genetics.
The genetic code is how the sequence of DNA is converted to into protein sequences. All DNA is read in the same way, as the genetic code is universal to all life.
Genes in complex organisms are broken down into sections called exons, with untranslated regions between them called introns.
Genes in complex organisms are broken down into sections called exons, with untranslated regions between them called introns.
Genomes in bacteria are far simpler than in complex organisms like plants and animals. As bacteria are a commonly used tool in biotechnology and research, the differences between them and other organisms are important.