Name to DNA

Convert your name into a DNA sequence using reverse translation

Letters B, J, O, U, X, Z have no amino acid — they'll appear greyed out

e.g. michael = ATG·ATA·TGC·CAT·GCA·GAA·CTT

So you know that living things have DNA, right? That's like the instruction manual that tells our bodies how to grow and work properly. Sometimes, scientists want to figure out what a certain piece of DNA does or how it works. But they might not know what the end result is supposed to look like.

That's where a biological process called 'reverse translation' comes in. It's like taking a recipe and trying to figure out what ingredients you need to make it. Instead of starting with the ingredients and making a recipe, you start with the recipe and figure out what ingredients you need. So in reverse translation, scientists start with a protein they want to understand and try to figure out what DNA sequence makes it. It's kind of like going backwards in the process of making a protein.

— written by Michael Martyn. Edited by Claude. "Explain reverse translation like I'm 10"
What

DNA is made up of a 4 letter alphabet (A, T, C, G), whereas proteins are made up of a 20 letter alphabet (A, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, K, L, M, N, P, Q, R, S, T, V, W, Y) — each letter represents an amino acid. DNA bases can be combined into sets of 3 called a "codon", which are intermediate between DNA and protein. For example, the amino acid Methionine is represented by the letter "M", which is coded for by the codon ATG, made up of 3 DNA bases: A, T, and G.

How

This app uses JavaScript to convert user-inputted letters (treated as amino acids) into a DNA sequence using a mapping between amino acids and their corresponding codons. In reverse mode, it parses a DNA string into triplet codons and looks up the corresponding amino acid for each.

Why

Teach folk about biology