Geeking out about DNA damage repair

Dr Rob waxes eloquent about some amazing new revelations involving DNA damage repair systems. Researchers recently turned AI onto the human genome, probing the genes and gene systems that are involved in maintaining and repairing DNA. The results shocked everyone. Many more genes that anyone thought are required, and entire new repair systems were discovered. So what came first, DNA or the amazing repair systems required to maintain DNA that are, in turn, coded into DNA? The point is that these systems are absolutely necessary for living things, yet they are also incredibly complicated. They would never be expected to arise without help, but without them the entire DNA system (not just the code, but the DNA itself) could never exist. Evolution, in this case, simply fails to explain much of anything. Links: Kratz et al. 2023. A multi-scale map of protein assemblies in the DNA damage response. Cell Syst 14(6):447-463.e8; https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37220749/

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