We are what we are because of ancient and mysterious genetics.

When a wound does not heal properly, it leaves a scar. Similarly, mutations—which are permanent changes to genetic code—are ...

Mutations are changes in the molecular 'letters' that make up the DNA code, the blueprint for all living cells. Some of these changes can have little effect, but others can lead to diseases, including ...

A newly discovered code within DNA -- coined 'spatial grammar' -- holds a key to understanding how gene activity is encoded in the human genome. This breakthrough finding revealed a long-postulated ...

(Alones Creative/iStock/Getty Images) One of the most iconic visual representations in biological science is the double helix ...

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 scalp cells sprout hair while the cells lining our nose and lungs make mucus. Our fat cells bloat, our retinal cells turn light into electricity, and our heart cells contract to order. Yet every ...

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 ...

A group of scientists at VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center has revealed a new genetic code that acts like a cancer ringleader, recruiting and deploying a gang of tumor cells to incite a ...

In 1968, the American biochemist and geneticist Marshall Nirenberg and his colleagues won the Nobel Prize in physiology or ...

Decades of research has viewed DNA as a sequence-based instruction manual; yet every cell in the body shares the same genes – so where is the language that writes the memory of cell identities?