The chemical origin of life on Earth is a puzzle that scientists have been trying to piece together for decades. Many hypotheses have been proposed to explain how life came to be and what chemical and ...

Scientists have been investigating properties of so-called xenonucleic acids or XNAs. They have demonstrated for the first time that six of these unnatural nucleic acid polymers are capable of sharing ...

This study, published in the journal Nature Chemistry, demonstrates for the first time a method of creating entire non-nucleic acid polymers directly from the code on DNA. Previously, non-nucleic acid ...

DNA. The very acronym calls to mind the molecule’s exquisite structure, a linear double helix. Our understanding of DNA and its orbiting strands has thrown back the curtains on many diseases—cancer, ...

Strategies for making sequence-controlled polymers in the laboratory are really quite primitive in comparison with those used in nature. By combining concepts from natural systems and synthetic ...

Lipid nanoparticle (LNP) technology is increasingly enabling the clinical potential of genetic drugs. By packaging the nucleic acid polymer in well-defined nanoparticles, LNPs protect the nucleic acid ...