Hey Geeks,

Hope you are all well. Due to popular demand from my out-of-the-closet geeks, I promised a while back that I would add a new category which would deal with the major scientific theories and here it is.

Now, because I am a genetic and molecular biology specialist by training, I think you will all forgive me if I indulge in my area of expertise to begin with :-). And I hope you will understand why.

Yesterday, the world was introduced to one of the biggest new developments in the world of genetics since the Human Genome Project.  Scientific researchers at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, in Cambridge, have developed chemical procedures that turn DNA and RNA, the molecular blueprints for all known life, into six alternative genetic polymers called XNAs.

I want you to take a moment and really take this in. It basically means that scientists have created artificial genetic material that can store information and evolve over generations in a similar way to DNA. WOAH. This is BIG. Not only is this expected to open up new doors for researching medicines and systems in biotechnology to fight major diseases such as cancer and hereditary disfunctions, but it provides a real tool that could enable scientists to make new novel forms of life in the lab.  All the science fiction lovers must be silently whispering “I told you so”.

Here comes the Hard-Core Science. The process swaps the deoxyribose and ribose (the “d” and “r” in DNA and RNA) for other molecules. It was found the XNAs could form a double helix with DNA and were more stable than natural genetic material. More importantly, the XNAs are shown to be able to stick to a protein, an ability that might mean the polymers (protein “strings”) could be deployed as drugs working like antibodies (the things that fight disease in our bodies).