DNA is much more complex than researchers had believed it in the early 2000s. Since 2003, some 450 researchers from more than thirty laboratories based in different countries (mainly USA, Europe and Asia) worked on the ENCODE project (Encyclopedia of DNA Elements) : Scientists have identified each DNA sequence and analyzed their function.
The result? They found that at least 80% of the DNA is active, much more than previously thought. We knew that the genes coding for the synthesis of different proteins that make up the human body (cells, tissues, organs) accounted for at most 2-3% of the molecule. The rest had been called, erroneously, “junk DNA”.
The results of this research have been published this week in various scientific journals. For more information, we invite you to read, among them, the series of articles in Nature: http://www.nature.com/nature/index.html
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