When people think of DNA, they usually think of genes, the parts that code for proteins and drive inherited traits. But there's a whole lot of DNA beyond genes that we are just starting to understand.

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Recent breakthroughs in genetics research may have uncovered new genes underlying common psychiatric disorders. Schizophrenia and ...

Our genetic heritage is not a blueprint or an algorithm, as many biologists have imagined, but something else entirely.

DNA modifications drive aging, neurodegeneration, carcinogenesis and chemotherapy drug action. Accurate mapping of diverse DNA modifications with single-nucleotide precision in complex genomes remains ...

Biological research spans scales from molecules to systems to organisms, seeking to understand and design functional components across all domains of life. Creating a machine to design functions ...

The genetic code is the recipe for life, and provides the instructions for how to make proteins, generally using just 20 amino acids. But certain groups of microbes have an expanded genetic code, in ...

Synthetic biologists from Yale were able to re-write the genetic code of an organism — a novel genomically recoded organism (GRO) with one stop codon — using a cellular platform that they developed ...

A codon, a sequence of three nucleotides in DNA and RNA that codes for a specific amino acid, acts like an “instruction manual” for protein synthesis, telling the cell which of the 20 natural amino ...