Tag: junk DNA

Thanks to CRISPR, gene therapy and “designer babies” are now a reality. The gene editing Swiss army knife is one of the most impactful biomedical discoveries of the last decade. Now a new study suggests we’ve just begun dipping our toes into the CRISPR pond. CRISPR-Cas9 comes from lowly origins….

Incorporating viruses that previously endangered their life into their non-coding or “junk” DNA, marsupials have made friends with ancient adversaries. Researchers have discovered multiple lines of evidence suggesting that these sections of DNA guard against viruses that are identical to the originals – and that they do it extremely efficiently….

Viral fossils buried in DNA may protect against future virus infections, a new marsupial study suggests. Fossils of ancient viruses are preserved in the genomes of all animals, including humans, and have long been regarded as junk DNA. But are they truly junk, or do they actually serve a useful…

Imagine the human genome as a string stretching out for the length of a football field, with all the genes that encode proteins clustered at the end near your feet. Take two big steps forward; all the protein information is now behind you. The human genome has three billion base…