DNA Sequencing

Hello there. My name is DNA Sequencing, but you can think of me as a super special recipe reader. I don't read books about dragons or pirates. I read the secret recipe book that is inside every living thing. It's inside the big, tall oak tree in the park, the fuzzy bumblebee buzzing by, and even inside you. This amazing recipe book is called DNA. It has all the instructions for how you grow, what color your eyes are, and why your hair is curly or straight. It's the most important book in the world. But for a very long time, nobody could read this book. Imagine trying to read a story where the letters are smaller than a grain of sand, and the book has billions of pages. It was a giant mystery waiting to be solved.

Then, some very clever scientists decided they were going to solve this mystery. Two men, named Frederick Sanger and Walter Gilbert, worked very hard. In the year 1977, they both figured out different ways to teach me how to read. It was like I was finally being born. The DNA recipe book doesn't use the same ABCs you learn in school. It has its own special alphabet with only four letters: A, T, C, and G. My job was to figure out the exact order of all those letters, which is a very big job. Mr. Sanger and Mr. Gilbert gave me something like a magical magnifying glass and special colorful markers. Each letter—A, T, C, and G—would get its own color. This helped me see them clearly for the first time. I could finally see the letters and start putting them in the right order. I would say, 'Aha. First comes a G, then a C, then a T.' At first, I was a little slow. Reading the DNA recipes was like carefully putting tiny, colorful beads on a very, very long string to spell out a secret message. It took a lot of time and patience, but for the first time ever, humans were able to read the secret code of life. It was so exciting. I knew I was going to help people in a big way.

As time went on, I got much, much faster at reading. Scientists kept making me better and better. I went from reading one word at a time to reading whole chapters all at once. Soon, I was ready for my biggest challenge yet. On October 1st, 1990, scientists all over the world started a huge project. It was called the Human Genome Project. Their goal was to use me to read the entire human recipe book from the first page to the last. It was like a giant race to read the longest encyclopedia in the world. It took many years, but on April 14th, 2003, they did it. They finally finished. Because of that big project, I can help people in so many ways now. I help doctors understand why some people get sick so they can find new medicines to make them better. I help scientists learn about amazing animals, like giant whales or ancient dinosaurs. I can even help you find out where your family came from a long, long time ago by reading the story in your own DNA recipe book. Every day, I am still busy reading, uncovering new secrets that help make our world a healthier and more wonderful place to live.