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COVID's genetic code was loaded into a computer and interpreted as music

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

This is the sound of the coronavirus.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

FADEL: COVID's genetic code has been fed into a computer and interpreted as music.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:

The person behind this is Mark Temple, a microbiologist in Sydney, Australia.

MARK TEMPLE: I'm both a musician and a scientist. So I thought, I'm well-placed here to actually approach this from a different angle. No one's really done this.

MARTÍNEZ: He developed a computer algorithm that assigns musical notes to DNA sequences. And he says it could help save lives.

TEMPLE: I heard about this thing called sonification. It's a way of using audio to analyze or to represent data. So I thought, well, could I get some DNA data and make audio from that?

FADEL: Generally, computers display DNA as lines and lines of letters.

TEMPLE: Each letter represents a module in the DNA sequence.

FADEL: But there are hundreds of thousands of letters in a sequence.

TEMPLE: It's like trying to read a book that has no punctuation.

MARTÍNEZ: So Dr. Temple created a way to listen to the DNA while the letters scroll across the screen.

TEMPLE: Down at the bottom here is a DNA sequence. So let me just play this and you'll see what I mean.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

TEMPLE: So what you just heard then, those other little blips - like, I'll play one.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

TEMPLE: Like that one, blip. It's a stop codon, a little bit of sequence that's important to the cell. So because it's important, I put a blip on it.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

FADEL: Temple has updated DNA sonification, which has been around for about 40 years. This music you're hearing now is based on the DNA of insulin.

MARTÍNEZ: Which was turned into an album and released in the '90s for entertainment. Temple says music and science have a lot to offer each other.

(SOUNDBITE OF DR DAVID DREAMER AND RILEY MCLAUGHLIN'S "INSULIN A & B CHAINS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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SOMOS CONNECTICUT es una iniciativa de Connecticut Public, la emisora local de NPR y PBS del estado, que busca elevar nuestras historias latinas y expandir programación que alza y informa nuestras comunidades latinas locales. Visita CTPublic.org/latino para más reportajes y recursos. Para noticias, suscríbase a nuestro boletín informativo en ctpublic.org/newsletters.

Fund the Facts

You just read trusted, local journalism that’s free for everyone, thanks to donors like you.

If that matters to you, now is the time to give. Join the 50,000+ members powering honest reporting and a more connected — and civil! — Connecticut.