The discovery of enzymes that could cut and paste DNA made genetic engineering possible. Restriction enzymes, found naturally in bacteria, can be used to cut DNA fragment at specific sequences, while another enzyme, DNA...

DNA transformation is a naturally occurring but rare event in which DNA can be transferred into bacteria. In 1970, Morton Mandel and Akiko Higa discovered a way to make E. coli more 'competent' for transforming foreign...

Two sequencing techniques were developed independently in the 1970s. The method developed by Fred Sanger used chemically altered 'dideoxy' bases to terminate newly synthesized DNA fragments at specific bases (either A,...

In the early days of DNA manipulation, DNA fragments were laboriously separated by gravity. In the 1970s, the powerful tool of DNA gel electrophoresis was developed. This process uses electricity to separate DNA...

Alu is an example of a so-called 'jumping gene' - a transposable DNA sequence that reproduces "by copying itself and inserting into new chromosome locations." This animation from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory's Dolan...