• Question: How many gaps between DNA have you noticed so far?

    Asked by to Lilly on 12 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Lilian Hunt

      Lilian Hunt answered on 12 Mar 2014:

      Our DNA is incredibly long however only about 2% of it is actually genes. The genes are the sections that code for different proteins to be made. That means that technically, about 98% is all the gaps in between these genes! As we don’t quite understand the language of these bits, we’re slowly trying to work out which are important and what they do. My lab has a list of about 7000 sections in these gaps that are almost exactly the same in humans as loads of other animals so we think they could be quite important!

Comments