Essay Writing Competition

ESSAY WRITING COMPETITION

“The Discovery of Deoxyribonucleic Acid”

By : Talitha Ratna Afiyah

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Deoxyribonucleic Acid or mostly known as DNA is a bio molecule that stores and encode genetic instructions every organism and virus.  These genetic instructions play an important role on organism / virus growth, development and function. Generally, DNA is on the cell nucleus. Chemical structures that DNA contains is compatible to keep biologic information every living things. Most of DNA (more than 98% on human) is non cocde, which means this part cannot encode protein

DNA first discovered on 1868 by Friederich Miescher, a Switzerland scientist who did the research in Germany. Then, DNA research inside the cell continued on 20th century together with the discovery of Mendel’s genetic postulate. DNA and protein become two molecules that is most likely to bring genetic characteristic, based on Mendel’s theory. On 1953, James Watson and Francis Cick gave new definition  of DNA as polimer who has four alkali from nucleic acid.  

DNA frequently called as heredity molecule because of its responsibility as genetic inheritance agent. Such as skin colors on human, characters, even diseases. In daily lives, DNA can identify suspected culprit on crime case, gain information from accident victim, and any more. DNA can be tracked through blood, skin, hair, or saliva that are left in the scene. DNA also able to motivate scientists to develop computer technology that can support research and algorithm to search specific orders from nucleotides.

With all the facts above, we know that DNA takes important roles on our life. Without DNA discovery, we will not know the reason why we have different skin colors with the others, maybe we will assume that it was because the amount of sunlight we receive, even though it is not entirely wrong.

Will we know the cause of parents and their children characters similarity? Is it only because they are raised with exact same way or method? Is it because the same environtment? Because every family have a tradition to raise their children? Like i said before, those are not entirely wrong, but the most correct answer is because of DNA.

Why the disease always affects our family? The grandfather, the daughter, even the grandchild. Is this a curse? Now we know that this is not a curse, there are diseases who inheritable and the DNA is the one who carries it.

Imagine if there was a crime case in the place full of people, and there is a strand of hair that is suspected to be from the culprit. What thing we can do to find out who is the culprit? Must we match the found hair with all of the people there one by one, only with our bare eyes? And what if it is not a strand of hair but a drop of blood? What can we do?

The discovery of DNA also make us able learn about genetics. We can develop our technology on livestocks and crops so there will be more profit when harvest season comes. We can create new species of flower or other plants make it prettier.  And i hope we can prevent species extinction and we can make this world a better place in the future.