Scientists Finally Read the Hidden DNA Code That Shapes Disease

“SDR-seq decodes both DNA and RNA from the same cell, finally opening access to non-coding regions.”

EMBL researchers developed SDR-seq, which reads both DNA and RNA from individual cells simultaneously. Most disease-associated genetic variants are in non-coding regions. The parts that don’t make proteins but control gene expression. Until now, those regions were largely opaque. This tool could finally explain why so many GWAS hits point to “junk” DNA that turns out to be anything but.