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Molecular Biology
Study DNA, RNA and proteins — the molecular machinery that keeps every living cell running.
What this field studies
Every cell in your body carries roughly the same DNA, yet a neuron and a skin cell behave completely differently. Molecular biologists work out how genes are read, how proteins fold and interact, and how cells respond to stress, infection and signals from their surroundings.
Questions researchers are asking
- How does a cell decide which of its genes to switch on?
- How do proteins fold into the right shape — and what happens when they don't?
- How does the immune system recognise an invader it has never seen before?
- How do bacteria evolve resistance to antibiotics?