Charles Denault III

Deoxyribonucleic acid, more commonly known by its acronym DNA, is the fundamental code that makes up the human body, and all other life forms on the Earth. Before I dive into my little analogy, let me give you the specifics on what DNA is.

DNA is a polymer, which is composed of monomers called nucleotides. The nucleotide consists of a 5-carbon sugar, a nitrogen containing base, and a phosphate group. The DNA consists of four different types of nucleotides, which differ only in the nitrogenous base. The four different nucleotides are represented by the letters A, T, C, G which correlate to adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine, respectively. The DNA is organized in two complimentary strands, which form a double-helix shape.

Where does this crazy stuff come from? The easy answer is that it comes from the parents of the critter (or you). So your parents each donate half of their DNA, which combine to create a unique offspring.

So this DNA is contained in a ton of places throughout the cell, but generally every cell in the human body contains a copy of your DNA. It’s stored safely inside the nucleus of the cell. So when something needs to be manufactured inside the cell, a little enzyme comes along and unwinds and unzips the DNA into two separate strands. So this is like the source code for humans.

When we look at computer programming, we generally have two classes of programming languages. Compiled and interpreted. Compiled programs are written using a programming language, such as C++, and are run through a compiler to make a functional program. The compiled program can be reverse engineered or decompiled into the original source code. Interpreted code is written just like any other program, however it’s not compiled. It’s interpreted and then returned each and every time it’s executed.

Now back to the cell…

Inside the nucleus we have some DNA, which then needs to get executed, or translated, into a functional protein or enzyme. The DNA runs into an enzyme which then compiles it transcribes it into a piece of RNA which then will eventually directly code for the protein. So the cell is actually maintaining a copy of the original DNA inside its nucleus at all times. This helps decrease the possibility of “accidents” or mutations. DNA acts like a combination of interpreted and compiled code. It is first interpreted which generates the RNA and then compiled into a protein. To perform a task.

So sure, there’s a copy of all the genetic code lying around in every single cell within every single organism but theres also the product of the entire code — everything within the organism that isn’t DNA. Every piece of an organism was coded by DNA, so why can’t we just break down those pieces? Why can’t we decompile them into the code that made them? Wouldn’t that make understanding organisms so much easier? We could decompile each and every enzyme within the human body, and learn how it’s exactly constructed.

There’s a huge difference between reading code and understanding it. Sure, anyone can look at latin and pronounce the words correctly, but you have to have an advanced understanding of the language to get anything out of it. You need to know not how to say the words, but how to understand their meaning. If we can understand not what each piece of DNA makes, but also how it makes it… we would make a quantum leap of which I can’t even begin to fathom.