Decoding DNA: Its Importance and Discovery

DNA is important because it is found in all living things like plants and animals. It is located in the nucleus of a cell. DNA stands for Deoxyribonucleic acid which is what contains our genetic code. Many scientist contributed to the discovery of DNA and it’s structure. Like Frederick Griffith, Oswald Avery, Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase. Also Erwin Chargaff, Rosalind Franklin, James Watson and Francis Crick.

Frederick Griffith was an important scientist because he helped discover DNA in the first place. Although he did not know what it was, he called it transformation. The way he discovered DNA was technically by accident because he was trying to learn how certain types of bacteria caused pneumonia. Griffith was conducting an experiment with four mice. The first one he injected with live S bacteria that killed the mice. The second mice was injected with live R bacteria and lived. The third one was injected with heat-killed S bacteria that did not kill the mouse. Griffith then injected the fourth mice with heat-killed S bacteria and live R bacteria. To his surprise the fourth mice had died because the S bacteria transferred to the R bacteria. That is why Griffith called this transformation.

He tried to find the transforming principle that Griffith had discovered. To do this Avery performed two experiments. His first experiment was repeating Griffith’s last experiment with the mouse but instead uses enzymes to break down molecules like proteins, lipids, and carbohydrates. This resulted with the transformation still happening. Avery’s second experiment was to use enzymes to break down DNA instead. From this experiment he concluded that when the DNA was broken down the transformation did not occur. Therefore Avery found that the nucleic acid DNA stores and