DNA DAY
A LITTLE HISTORY
On April 25, 1953, molecular biologists Francis Harry Compton Crick, James Dewey Watson and Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins suggested in Nature a structure for DNA[1]. In a very short article, they transformed the future of biology and gave the world an icon — the double helix. They realized that the DNA structure indicated a “possible copying mechanism for the genetic material”, a crucial discovery that eventually led to the cracking of the genetic code and later to the complete sequence of the human genome.
Source: Deposit photos
Nine years later, in 1962, the three scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine “for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material”[2].
On April 14, 2003 the Human Genome Project (HGP), an inward voyage of discovery led by an international team of researchers looking to sequence and map all of the genes — together known as the genome — of members of our species, Homo sapiens, was declared complete. The Project lasted for 13 years, finishing two years ahead of schedule, and it gave us the ability, for the first time, to read nature’s complete genetic blueprint for building a human being[3].
The HGP has revealed that there are probably about 20,500 human genes. This ultimate product of the HGP has given the world a resource of detailed information about the structure, organization and function of the complete set of human genes. This information can be thought of as the basic set of inheritable “instructions” for the development and function of a human being.
RETHINKING DNA
For decades, scientists were puzzled by a phenomenon: All animals have a large excess of DNA that does not code for the proteins used to build bodies and catalyze chemical reactions within cells. In humans, for example, only about 2 percent of DNA actually codes for proteins. With no obvious function, the noncoding portion of a genome was declared useless or sometimes called “selfish DNA,” existing only for itself without contributing to an organism’s fitness. In 1972 the late geneticist Susumu Ohno coined the term “junk DNA” to describe all noncoding sections of a genome, most of which consist of repeated segments scattered randomly throughout the genome.
Although very catchy, the term “junk DNA” inhibited science for many years due to this notion that non-coding genetic material was not functional (“junk”). Many scientists did not spend their time studying it because of their evolutionary presuppositions that it was worthless DNA, after all, who would like to dig through genomic garbage? Thankfully, though, there are some scientists who explored unpopular territories and it is because of them that in the early 1990s, the view of junk DNA, especially repetitive elements, began to change. It appears that they are not useless DNA. Instead, they interact with the surrounding genomic environment and increase the ability of the organism to evolve by serving as hot spots for genetic recombination and by providing new and important signals for regulating gene expression.
OUR DNA
Today is DNA Day celebrating the discovery of DNA’s double helix structure in 1953 & successful completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003. Every year on April 25, scientists, biologists, and genetics enthusiasts come together to celebrate the discovery and research into DNA and the scientific advancements that helped make progress possible. We, at the IFSCC 2023 would like to take advantage of this anniversary to inform you about our own Congress DNA,
IFSCC 2023 would like to encourage people to learn more about the science that makes this industry so unique and to pay homage to the amazing advances in cosmetic research & how those advances have impacted our lives. But, of course, information is only as good as the ability to use it and to question what has already been learned.
Trying to somehow make a parallel between genomic science and cosmetic science, there is a term, employed for the first time in 1982 by the late evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould and paleontologist Elisabeth Vrba[4], that explains how different genomic entities may take on new roles regardless of their original function—even if they originally served no purpose at all: “exaptation”. We at the IFSCC 2023 would like to invite you to Rethink Beauty Science and explore the possible exaptations in cosmetic science landscape.
Looking forward to meeting you at the IFSCC 2023!
IFSCC 2023 Scientific Committee
[1] The structure of DNA. Nature 575, 35-36 (2019). https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02554-z
[2] The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1962. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1962/summary/
[3] The Human Genome Project. https://www.genome.gov/human-genome-project
[4] Exaptation-A Missing Term in the Science of Form. Paleobiology, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Winter, 1982), pp. 4-15. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2400563?origin=JSTOR-pdf
