Coloured scanning electron micrograph of human chromosomes during an early stage of mitotic cell division. Each chromosome consists of two identical chromatids, replicated at an earlier stage. They have condensed in preparation for cell division, during which one chromatid will go to each daughter cell (×4200)
It is the 1950s and the biggest puzzle in molecular biology of the day has been solved by James Watson and Francis Crick. Watson and Crick, leaning heavily on data from Rosalind Franklin, have recently pieced together the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), the chemical of life. But the physical structure of double helix DNA, with its matching base pairs, is just the start. The structure itself raises new questions: how is DNA replicated, how does DNA relate to the assembly of proteins in the cell, and what are the consequences of a change in the sequence of the bases?
DNA
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