2010 National DNA Day Online Chatroom Transcript

This is just one question from an archive of the National DNA Day Moderated Chat held in April 2010. The NHGRI Director and many genomics experts from across NHGRI took questions from students, teachers and the general public on topics ranging from basic genomic research, to the genetic basis of disease, to ethical questions about genetic privacy.

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How does evolution account for the creation of DNA?
     Joe McInerney, M.S.: I received my MS in human genetics and genetic counseling from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, in 1976. I spent more than two decades at the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS), in Colorado, where I was director for 14 years and wrote textbooks and other educational materials in biology, with a focus on genetics and evolution. Since October 2000, i've been executive director of National Coalition for Health Professional Education in Genetics, where he develops educational materials in human genetics and genetic medicine for a broad range of health professionals. Evolution requires a mechanism that can transmit biological information reliably from one generation to the next. That information also must be capable of undergoing transmissible changes (variation) that can serve as the basis for natural selection in populations. DNA fits the bill as an information molecule. Some biologists think, however, that RNA might have been the first information molecule to evolve.
Belle HS in MO (11th grade student)

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