Mutations are changes in the molecular "letters" that make up the DNA code, the blueprint for all living cells. Some of these changes can have little effect, but others can lead to diseases, including ...

New research from a team of genome scientists and DNA damage response experts breaks new ground in understanding the function of a protein currently limited in clinical trials for cancer treatments.

An INRS team discovers a new family of enzymes capable of inducing targeted cuts in single-stranded DNA . A few years ago, the advent of technology known as CRISPR was a major breakthrough in the ...

Every time a cell divides, it must copy its entire genome so that each daughter cell inherits a complete set of DNA. During that process, enzymes known as polymerases race along the DNA to copy its ...

Mutations accumulate in the genome of every cell of the body throughout life, causing cancer and other genetic diseases. Almost all of these mosaic mutations begin as nucleotide mismatches or damage ...

Despite its utility, PCR’s main limitation is that it requires precise cycles of heating and cooling to amplify DNA. The thermal cyclers that perform this operation are clunky, relatively expensive, ...

A rapid isothermal amplification technique enables pathogen identification and antibiotic resistance detection in low-resource settings. Recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) is a technique for ...

DNA’s iconic double helix does more than “just” store genetic information. Under certain conditions it can temporarily fold into unusual shapes. Researchers at Umeå University, Sweden, have now shown ...

In a way, sequencing DNA is very simple: There's a molecule, you look at it, and you write down what you find. You'd think it would be easy—and, for any one letter in the sequence, it is. The problem ...