Deeper Into DNA (BIOLOGY TODAY‪)‬

Sometimes teaching biology is tough. Here I'm not just referring to unruly students or annoying administrators, but to the subject itself. It just doesn't stand still. Even something as apparently rock-solid as the gene turns out to be a moving target. Recently, Nature ran the article "What Is a Gene?" (Pearson, 2006). Now Nature deals with the latest in research, so if this journal is considering the definition of the gene, something must be going on with a word that biologists use freely and think they know what it means. Why is it now an issue? The answer lies in new research, and this is not the first time that the idea of a gene has changed. After all, the term dates back to 1909 when it was coined by the Danish geneticist Wilhelm Johannsen. This was years before Oswald Avery discovered that DNA was the genetic material. His work eventually caused a sea change in what biologists meant by the word gene. And its precise meaning has been revised over the years as research progressed: as the structure of DNA was discovered, the genetic code worked out, and molecular biology developed. Vocabulary