It’s hard to imagine science without the three-dimensional structure of DNA, Shelley Smith, Ph.D., says.
“It was such an entire transformation of how we study disease,” said Dr. Smith, director of the UNMC Center for Molecular Genetics, housed at the Munroe-Meyer Institute. “The research that we’re doing today would be impossible without knowing the structure.”
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Today, scientists worldwide are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the article, published in Nature, that described the now famous “double helix” model that describes how DNA is structured. James Watson and Francis Crick wrote the article.
Subsequent research showed that Watson and Crick’s model was correct. Their discovery of the structure of DNA has spurred a half-century of research that initiated a scientific revolution. Recently, scientists announced that they had deciphered the entire human genome, decoding more than 3 billion letters that represent the biological workings of humans.
Genetics work has allowed physicians to diagnose diseases more accurately, to identify new diseases and to offer patients the best treatments available.
While sequencing the genome has provided some scientific answers, it’s akin to reading only the first chapter of a book. Now, scientists are working to determine how the book’s characters interact to form various outcomes.
“Now, we need to determine how the molecules operate and interact, to find out what really is causing diseases,” Dr. Smith said. “Knowing the sequence is important for designing more studies and gathering more answers. It’s another tool to find out what is happening.”
Part of seeking pieces to the genetic puzzle also involves studying materials that scientists once disregarded as “junk DNA,” Dr. Smith said. In the Center for Human Molecular Genetics , Claudia Kappan, Ph.D., and Michael Salbaum, Ph.D., are studying such “non-coding regions.”
“In last five to 10 years, people have started to realize that these regions weren’t junk,” Dr. Smith said. “If the regions of the DNA are conserved across species, for example, it probably means they are important functionally.”
Throughout this year, in honor of the 50th anniversary of Watson and Crick’s discovery, UNMC Today will feature various genetics research projects at UNMC. Topics will include mouse engineering facilities, how environmental factors combine with genetics to affect development and the identification of a gene mutation that affects deafness.