not nucleic acid, but by the late 1940s, DNA was largely accepted as the genetic molecule. Scientists still needed to figure out this molecule's structure to be sure, and to understand how it worked.

The resulting RNA molecule, typically mRNA, carries the genetic message from the nucleus to the cytoplasm for protein synthesis. Nucleic acids are the foundation of genetic engineering techniques, ...

But James Watson and Francis Crick's claim was a valid one, for they had in fact discovered the structure of DNA ... that DNA, a nucleic acid, carries genetic information. But no one knew how ...

Each of these things — along with every other organism on Earth — contains the molecular instructions for life, called deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA. Encoded within this DNA are the directions ...

This article was originally published with the title “ The Three-Dimensional Structure of a Protein Molecule ” in Scientific American Magazine Vol. 205 No. 6 (December 1961), p. 96 doi:10.1038 ...

a sugar molecule, and a phosphate group. Levene made his initial proposal in 1919, discrediting other suggestions that had been put forth about the structure of nucleic acids. In Levene's own ...

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is the information-carrying molecule found in all living organisms. In most animal, plant and fungal cells DNA is stored in the nucleus coiled up in thread-like ...