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The Discovery Of The Double Helix And Dna

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DNA is the central dogma of modern biology, it is present in all living things from bacteria to mammals. DNA carries the genetic information of the organism and is used in processes like mitosis, meiosis and protein production. The reason as to why I chose this topic specifically is because it is central to my favourite aspect of biology, genetics.
Prior to the discover of the double helix and DNA itself there was some information and experiments done on genetics with what little knowledge they had. Gregor Mendel carried out his experiments on pea plants by cross breading plants with different traits and came to the conclusion that there are dominant and recessive factors, now called genes. Unknown to Mendel he had just scratched the surface of genetics and this would be taken a step further by Johannes Friedrich Miescher with the discovery of DNA.
Johannes Friedrich Miescher used leucocytes from puss on bandages from a nearby hospital. However he came across a problem he had to remove the leucocytes from the bandages without damaging them, he did this by filtering them in sodium sulphate. After obtaining the cells he had to separate the nuclei and the cytoplasm. He did this by putting the nuclei through alkaline extraction and acidification. This caused a precipitate to form which Miescher called nuclein, now known as DNA.
James Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins are the 3 people awarded for their work on the discovery of the DNA double helix, however there was

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