Even though it's been more than a decade since the Human Genome Project was completed (in April 2003, to be exact), we still have a long way to go when it comes to mapping DNA. Perhaps none are more aware of this than researchers in MIT's graduate and postdoctoral programs at the renowned university's Department of Biology, where professors, postdocs, and Ph.D. students are working tirelessly to take the next logical step in charting the secrets of the organic coils that serve as the building blocks for life as we know it: by taking it from a two-dimensional rendering and converting it into 3D.
In an interview, doctoral candidate Abe Weintraub relayed to campus news source MIT News the minutae of creating a 3D map of DNA, which will most likely change the way we think of DNA in the first place, switching it from a more linear construct to an unknown spatial arrangement, where two separate genes that appear to be far apart from each other when stretched out in a straight line could actually be in adjacent positions when folded, and vice versa.
3D-mapped DNA models might also give scientists an idea as to how different types of genes form—well, differently—and the secret behind what makes cells turn off and on.
The first step? Finding the key to what makes DNA form a folding into their shapes. Or, as per MIT's latest research, lead by MIT professor of biology Richard Young—what causes DNA shape malformation, which in turn can cause diseases like cancer.
"I like the idea that what I'm doing is identifying principles behind something as central to our biology as DNA," concluded Weintraub. "I like that there's still room for that kind of discovery here."
Via: MIT News
Photo: Stew Dean | Flickr
