Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is essential to the development and functioning of all living organisms.  Often dubbed as our “genetic blueprint,” it contains all the instructions necessary to carry out cell processes through the production of proteins and RNA molecules. The information in DNA is stored as a code consisting of four chemical bases: adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C), and thymine (T).

The four bases pair up to form units known as bases pairs; each base pair is connected to a sugar and phosphate molecule to form a nucleotide.  Together, the nucleotides are arranged into two long strands called a double helix, forming a DNA structure that looks very much like a twisted ladder.