Innovation in DNA

Technology around DNA is evolving to the point where it may be possible to affordably print original DNA sequences.

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Three issues of Nature magazine are shown. They contain the original scholarly articles in which Francis Crick and James Watson first revealed to the world the structure of DNA.The issues (dated April 25, 1953, May 30, 1953, and August 24, 1953) are part of the Dr. Elliott and Eileen Hinkes Collection of Rare Books of Scientific Discovery at the Sheridan Libraries of Johns Hopkins University.

Will Kirk /

Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins, 46, of Greenwich, London, shared the Nobel Prize for medicine with Francis Crick and James Watson. In this Oct. 18, 1962, photogtaph, he stands beside a model of a DNA molecule during a news conference in the New York office of the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research.

Anthony Camerano / Associated Press

King Gustaf Adolf delivers the Nobel Prize to Francis Crick (left front) on Dec. 10, 1962, in Stockholm for Physiology of Medicine. Standing in background left to right: Max Perutz, John Kendrew, Maurice Wilkins and James Watson.

/ AP

U.S. scientist and DNA discoverer James Watson poses for photographers behind a model of the "DNA Double Helix" at an exhibition in Berlin on Oct. 11, 2004. The new frontier in genetic technology is no longer reading it, but writing it.

Markus Schreiber / Associated Press

A DNA solution is pipeted. DNA, which is considered to house the blueprint of life, can be broken down into the four building blocks of the genetic code. Reaction to DNA printing has been mixed, with some excited about the potential for personalized disease cures, and others worried that DNA could be the next frontier for hackers and biological warfare.

/ Associated Press

An Affymetrix Inc. employee places a gene wafer into one of the photo lithography machines at the company's production facilities in West Sacramento, Calif., on April 3, 2002. Gene chips are dime-size pieces of glass, infused with DNA fragments, that allow researchers to study how and why genes react to various stimuli.

Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press

Robyn Thompson, an associate scientist with InnoGenomics Technologies, works with DNA samples in a laboratory at the New Orleans BioInnovation Center on Sept. 29, 2011. The lab aims to succeed in profiling the smallest of genetic samples and having results on DNA comparisons completed within an hour or two — a vast improvement over the usual time it takes for such analysis.

Gerald Herbert / AP

J. Craig Venter talks with Li Ma, the scientist who made the initial transfers of synthetic cell materials at the J. Craig Venter Institute. Venter announced in May 2010 that his team had, for the first time in history, built a synthetic life form.

Eli Meir Kaplan / For The Washington Post

Senior scientists Clyde Hutchinson, left, and Hamilton Smith, a Nobel Laureate in medicine, work in their lab at JCVI Institute. They provide much of the "wet lab" expertise in dealing with DNA for Craig Venter of the J. Craig Venter Institute and were key to the synthetic cell project.

Michael Kelley / For The Washington Post

Michael Morton is squeezed on the shoulder by his mother, Pat Morton, before leaving the Williamson County Courthouse in Taylor, Texas, on Oct. 4, 2011. Morton was freed from a life sentence after recent DNA tests linked Christine Morton's murder to a then-unidentified felon. Advances in DNA have allowed for the exoneration of hundreds of individuals accused and convicted of crimes they did not commit.

Ricardo B. Brazziell / AP

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