The DNA & Genetics Museum
A four-letter chemical alphabet — A, T, G, C — that builds every living thing. From Mendel's pea plants to Watson, Crick, and Franklin's helix, from PCR amplification to nanopore sequencing to CRISPR gene editing.
The Double Helix
Two sugar-phosphate backbones twist around a central axis once every 10.5 base pairs. The bases stack like rungs; A pairs with T, G pairs with C — each strand is a complete recipe for the other. Click any rung.
G–C pairs are held together by three hydrogen bonds; A–T pairs by two. GC-rich DNA is more thermally stable — the basis for PCR primer design.
The Collection
43 artifacts across DNA structure, the genetic code, molecular biology tools, history, and the applications now reshaping medicine and agriculture. Click any card to copy its description.
No artifacts in this category.
A Century of Genetics
From 1865 to 2023 — a hundred and fifty years of figuring out what heredity is and how to read it.
Hands-on Instruments
Translate DNA into protein, build the complementary strand, and browse twelve well-studied genetic diseases with the exact mutation responsible for each.
Each three-base codon codes for one of 20 amino acids — or for a stop signal that ends translation. The reading frame matters: shifting where you start reading changes every codon downstream.
A↔T, G↔C. The reverse complement (used for things like primer design) reads the complement from 3' to 5' and writes it 5' to 3'. GC-rich DNA is more thermally stable.
Twelve well-characterised single-gene disorders. Most are monogenic — caused by a defect in a single gene — which makes them simpler to study but also makes them rare. The vast majority of trait variation comes from many small effects across many genes (polygenic), not single switches.
Gene
Mutation
Mechanism
Prevalence