The double helix unwinds, and each strand serves as a template for the synthesis of a new ... produce therapeutic proteins, and develop new crop varieties. Nucleic acid-based techniques, such as ...

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is a molecule that encodes an ... Francis Crick and James Watson described the molecular shape of DNA as a "double helix." Double-stranded DNA is composed of two ...

A nucleic acid is a long molecule made up of smaller molecules called nucleotides. Nucleic acids were discovered in 1868, when twenty-four-year-old Swiss physician Friedrich Miescher isolated a ...

RNA consists of only one strand, unlike the double-helix of DNA. RNA molecules are also significantly shorter in length. Despite these differences, both types of nucleic acid are made from the ...

In the late nineteenth century, a German biochemist found the nucleic acids ... base pairs interlocked in the middle of the double helix to keep the distance between the chains constant.