DNA IS NOT GARBAGE

DNA IS NOT GARBAGE

          Having the audacity to refer to DNA as garbage is a blatant sign of disrespect. As of now, we do not have the knowledge to know whether the "junk" DNA has a purpose. We are assuming that the only purpose of DNA is coding for protein, but there could be countless undiscovered phenomena that the "junk" DNA is being used for. It not just me who believes this, computational biologist Ewan Birney says, "What was once known as junk DNA turns out to hold hidden treasures." They have already discovered that some of the "junk" DNA is used for regulatory purposes, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Other parts of it seem to have their own functions such as sensing chemicals in the cells. Who is to say that the remaining parts won't also have functions that are yet to be discovered. Scientists are hard at work on the ENCODE project, which is dedicated to find the purpose for the entire human genome. Until we have expanded our knowledge of DNA, it would be in our best interest to not call it garbage.