Every new life begins after a genetic shuffle. When organisms make eggs or sperm, maternal and paternal chromosomes pair up and swap pieces of DNA in a process called crossing over. This exchange is ...

The human genome consists of 3 billion base pairs, and when a cell divides, it takes about seven hours to complete making a copy of its DNA. That's almost 120,000 base pairs per second. At that ...

Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have created a new molecule which carries DNA into biological cells, to treat or vaccinate against illnesses. Many existing options rely on molecules ...

New research sheds light on how cells repair damaged DNA. For the first time, the team has mapped the activity of repair proteins in individual human cells. The study demonstrates how these proteins ...

Getting DNA into a living cell sounds simple, until you remember the cell’s outer membrane acts like a guarded wall. DNA strands carry a negative charge, and they do not cross that wall easily.

Labs around the world are trying to turn cells into autobiographers, tracking their own development from embryos to adults. By Carl Zimmer Shortly after conception, a fertilized egg divides, becoming ...

When cells proliferate, genomic DNA is precisely duplicated once per cell cycle. Abnormalities in this DNA replication process can cause alterations in genomic DNA, promoting cellular ageing, cancer, ...

For almost 60 years, scientists have tried to understand why DNA doesn't replicate wildly and uncontrollably every time a cell divides, which happens constantly. Without this process, we would die.

A team led by Professor Shoichiro Asayama at Tokyo Metropolitan University has synthesized a charge-free molecule designed to sneak plasmid DNA into living cells via hydrogen bonding, dramatically ...