As a molecular biologist, I always enjoy reading articles concerning DNA and RNA. Your excellent article in the April 3, 2023, issue of C&EN (page 18) titled “The Promise of Peptide Nucleic Acids” ...

The chemical origin of life on Earth is a puzzle that scientists have been trying to piece together for decades. Many hypotheses have been proposed to explain how life came to be and what chemical and ...

Scientists have been investigating properties of so-called xenonucleic acids or XNAs. They have demonstrated for the first time that six of these unnatural nucleic acid polymers are capable of sharing ...

Strategies for making sequence-controlled polymers in the laboratory are really quite primitive in comparison with those used in nature. By combining concepts from natural systems and synthetic ...

Four billion years ago, the Earth looked very different than it does today, devoid of life and covered by a vast ocean. Over the course of millions of years, in that primordial soup, life emerged.

This study, published in the journal Nature Chemistry, demonstrates for the first time a method of creating entire non-nucleic acid polymers directly from the code on DNA. Previously, non-nucleic acid ...

Aptamers, nucleic acids capable of selectively binding to viruses, proteins, ions, small molecules, and various other targets, are garnering attention in drug development as potential antibody ...

If you’ve ever learned a language, says Jen Heemstra of Emory University, there are two levels of understanding. First you learn to read text and comprehend it. Then you begin speaking the language ...

At the heart of molecular biology is the study of genetic material – DNA and RNA – which serve as the fundamental blueprints for life. These nucleic acids are not only essential for understanding how ...