Produced by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, these resources will help students to understand the structure of DNA, where it is found in cells and the function it performs. The activities include:

* Animation which 'zooms in' on a body to ultimately reveal the structure of DNA
* Activities making...

These animations, from the Wellcome Trust, explore DNA structure, function and analysis. They explain the biological processes that transcribe and translate the genetic code to produce proteins. Animations also illustrate how the processes used to sequence DNA have developed to allow genomes to be analysed at a...

A Catalyst article about Dolly the sheep which was born in 1996. The scientists who created her claimed she was a ‘clone’ from a female adult sheep. To prove this claim, genetic profiling or fingerprinting was done by another, independent group of scientists. The article explores how this was done and what other...

Produced by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, this resource contains an overview of the techniques involved in making a BAC (Bacterial Artificial Chromosome) library. It consists of an animation that covers the key stages in the process:

From the Sanger Institute, this craft based activity suitable for classroom use or science festivals where students make a DNA sequence bracelet that carries part of the code of an organism such as a human, trout, chimpanzee or butterfly.

The activity reinforces the principle of complementary base pairs as...

From the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, this animation shows a detailed overview of the processes involved in the dideoxy or Sanger method for sequencing DNA. This is the method used to sequence the human genome. The animation demonstrates the principles and techniques involved in the Sanger sequencing method,...

Activities in this resource aim to:

• celebrate the achievement of completing the Human Genome project in 2003
• show the relevance of genome sequencing today
• explain the methods used for DNA sequencing, including the illumina method of rapid sequencing and the shotgun sequencing
...

In this lesson students experience first-hand how collaboration between scientists helps make scientific discoveries.

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In this activity, students have some sections of DNA code and need to work out what the coloured bases are to identify animals. Curriculum links include:

• DNA base pairing
• DNA variation between species

A collection of resources about DNA replication.  These resources are part of the post 16 genetics and genomics collection.

Diagramatic representation of the replication of DNA. This is the process by which the cell makes a copy of its existing DNA before it divides. This therefore ensures that each new cell receives a full complement of DNA. The DNA polymerase enzyme can only add new bases in the 5'-3' direction. This leads to...

In this method, the DNA is used as a template to generate a set of fragments that differ in length from each other by a single base. The fragments are then...

This animation, from the Wellcome Trust, illustrates how the DNA code is used to build protein molecules inside our cells.

It shows how, during the process of transcription, polymerase unzips the DNA and uses it as a...

A collection of resources covering DNA, genes and chromosomes. This collection is part of the Post 16 genetics and genomics collection.