Protecting your genetic “Hard Drive”

Ed Park, MD Uncategorized Leave a Comment

“If your genome was like a computer hard drive…”

DNA code is a sequence of chemicals that encode all the data you need to build and operate a human and it is written with only 4 DNA digits. It is a digital code but it is not binary like computers, but quaternary with 4 distinct items. The encoding information in an ordered sequence of 4 different symbols called “bases”, typically denoted A, C, G, and T.

* A: adenosine
* C: cytosine
* G: guanine
* T: thymine

These 4 substances are the fundamental “bits” of information in the genetic code, and are called “base pairs” because there are actually 2 substances per “bit.”

The entirety of human DNA code, called the “human genome”, runs about 3 billion bases in total. Every human being has 2 copies of this code, one copy from each parent, so a human’s cell DNA contains a total of around 6 billion bases. In computer terms, this is around 6 Gigabytes of symbols per cell that need to be copied and distributed to each daughter cell in a process of cell division or “mitosis”


Luckily, both computer drives and DNA copying have very efficient error detection and correction mechanisms. The most important error corrector for biological data is the p53 enzyme, which will be featured in the future post, “All along the watchtower”

But unlike computers, there is a single critical step in every cell division in which 23 double pairs of chromosomes are simultaneously pulled apart to impart 23 single pairs for each of the two new cells.  This occurs in the miraculous kinetechore:


Think of this as a huge Virginia Reel of chromosomes but with pairs of siamese twins instead of men and women.  That way, it doesn’t matter which chromosome goes to which daughter cell. This dance party happens 50 billion times a day in your body.

Unfortunately, DNA sequences, like Scarlet and Rhett, can be attracted to complimentary DNA strands even if they are not supposed to be paired with them. If they don’t follow the music or “dance with the ones that brung ‘em” you can get an improper number if chromosomes or new and abnormal fused chromosomes.

But even without taking into consideration the crash-prone event of the kinetochore “mosh pit ,” consider that there are 50 billion cell divisions x 6 billion base pairs copied per cell division every day. This means there are 300 quintillion chances for errors every day. That’s 300,000,000,000,000,000,000 chances to make a mistake every day.  Wow.

That makes me feel lucky to have woken up this morning.

You should feel even more fortunate because for the first time in history, you can protect your genetic code, like I have, by lengthening the telomeres with TA-65.  Visit and schedule a consultation soon. Don’t wait for your genetic hard drive to crash. Be proactive.

Good health to all,

Dr. Ed Park

(adapted  from “Introduction to Genes and DNA”)

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