Category: What’s important about…

  • What’s important about… teaching DNA?

    What’s important about… teaching DNA?

    chemical structure of DNA on a blackboardEverybody agrees that we should teach the ‘Central Dogma’ in IntroBio (DNA => RNA => Protein). But surely that’s not an answer to the question. What is important to understand about the actors and the ‘flow of information’ [what’s information?], why does each actor have the role it has, why are the actors chemically as they are and not otherwise (to paraphrase Einstein). As part of this blog, I’m going to go through views I’ve developed over two decades, starting with DNA. Foreshadowing: it’s not going to be about alphabets: the letters D-N-A and the letters A-G-C-T cannot encompass what is important about a molecule capable of holding in its structure the instructions-to-build for every known living thing.

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