Pioneering scientists in the UK have decoded a record-breaking two billion letters of DNA, it has been revealed. The researchers at the Wellcome Trust's Sanger Institute say that if this DNA was scaled up to the size of a spiral staircase it would stretch to the Moon. The "life code" found in cells contains information about biology, health and disease in humans and other organisms. It is the genes written in the DNA that dictate the diseases we are likely to get and how we respond to treatment.Sequencing involves identifying the repeated patterns of component bases - or letters - that make up the long twisting strands of the molecule deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). As well as contributing one-third (903 million bases) of the work involved in deciphering our genome, scientists at the Sanger Institute in Hinxton near Cambridge have also helped to decode the DNA secrets of more than 25 microbes that cause some of the world's deadliest diseases, including malaria, TB, typhoid and plague.

The two billion figure also includes 630 million mouse bases and 246 million zebrafish units. Added to this are 49 million letters from the laboratory nematode worm, Caenorhabditis elegans, and 13 million from yeasts. Dr Jane Rogers, head of sequencing at the Sanger, said: "The work carried out here has forever changed the way science works. "Our understanding of organisms has been pushed forward light years.

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