DNA and genetics - Anna Kessling

When James Watson and Francis Crick published their discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953, they opened the door to a whole new realm of scientific knowledge. Their breakthrough also paved the way for advances in biotechnology such as genetically modified crops, transgenic animals and cloned embryos. In this book, Anna Kessling provides a straightforward introduction to genetics, the study of how living things inherit their characteristics, and to DNA itself, the remarkable chemical that carries information about these characteristics from one generation to the next. She helps us to understand the structure of DNA and how genes work. The book also describes the basic principles of gene therapy and genetic modification, and explains how these revolutionary technologies raise issues that affect us all. The book features images of some of the unique objects in the collections of the Science Museum, such as the reassembled Watson and Crick DNA model, a 2000-year-old skeleton whose living relatives have been traced using DNA samples, and a jumper made from the wool of Dolly, the first-ever cloned sheep.