DNA Day
April 25th is National DNA Day in the United States. It is a day to commemorate the completion of the human genome project and the discovery of the DNA double helix. According to the Genome.gov website, “National DNA Day is a unique day when students, teachers, and the public can learn more about genetics and genomics.”
The first DNA Day was celebrated in 2003 after being officially recognised by the first session of the 108th United States Congress. The day is marked by a series of events taking place between February and April, with the majority taking place on April 25th. For more information about the events and ideas for activities go to https://www.genome.gov/dna-day.
DNA Day 2021 is of special importance. It is a day when most in person activities have been prevented due to a global pandemic which emphasises the importance of DNA and genomics in our everyday life. The scale of the global response and deployment of genomic tools cannot be understated and is summarised well in this Nature News piece:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01069-w
This monumental global effort has been essential for the research community to understand the biology of the novel SARS-CoV-2 virus as well as being able to quickly identify and track emerging variants which are identified quickly thanks to genetic surveillance programs.
https://www.who.int/csr/don/archive/disease/novel_coronavirus/en/
The world has never seen a greater test of these technologies and without them, it’s hard to imagine how we would tackle the COVID-19 pandemic.
With fast and automated genomic technologies, it is easy to forget that DNA tools are at the heart of every lab investigating COVID-19. Molecular techniques allow scientists to express viral proteins and study molecular treatments without ever being exposed to the risks of handling a live virus. It’s truly amazing when you think about it. As a viral variant was discovered in Wuhan, its DNA sequence was determined and shared around the world. At this point, any lab could take the sequence and reproduce the critical spike proteins in their own lab to start looking for inhibitory drugs without ever seeing the viral strain.
DNA Day is also especially important for Moligo Technologies. Our products are long single stranded DNA oligos that can be produced at industrial scales thanks to our patented enzymatic production method. We see DNA technology as the future of medicine and synthetic biology and our mission is to make sure that as many people can take advantage of the benefits as possible.