Team:Aberdeen Scotland/DNA

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Team:Aberdeen Scotland/DNA - 2014.ogem.org



Write in DNA

DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid. It is the instruction material for all cells in your body. DNA is a long molecule with a double-helix structure that looks something like this:

DNA Helix

"ADN animation" by brian0918 - Own work. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

This looks very complicated. In order to simplify things, scientists talk about DNA in terms of the sequence of its bases. Bases are the basic building parts of DNA and they carry its information. A DNA molecule can then be characterized more easily in terms of its sequence of bases. This is called genetic sequence or genetic code.

Different genes have different sequences and those sequences determine exactly what the gene does. Some genes regulate other genes, other genes produce proteins and some genes are there for backup in case of something bad happening. So to illustrate all of this, we have created a small app that lets you convert letters, sentences and text into DNA to see how it looks.

This app will let you transcode letters, number and simple punctuation to DNA. The mapping alphabet is using the E. Coli codon bias and can translate the following characters:

Letters [a to z] and [A to Z], Digits [0 to 9],
Spaces [ ] and the Full-Stop[.]


Type in the text you wish translated to DNA in the following box:


*You can try entering your name for instance

The translation of your text will appear here: