Setting up Shop: RNA to Proteins

Ribonucleic acid (RNA to its friends, including us) is a sibling to DNA. You may have noticed from the name that RNA is really just DNA without the "deoxy". Much of what has been said about DNA applies to RNA as well. RNA contains genetic instructions, is made up of an alphabet, can base pair with DNA or other RNA strands. However, there are some crucial differences. The alphabet is different—instead of T, RNA uses a U (for Uracil). While DNA is usually found as a double-stranded molecule, RNA is almost always single stranded.  You can think of RNA as a working copy of the DNA, a copy that is intended to be recycled after use. RNA is disposable, because it's main purpose is to serve as a template for protein machinery and protein machinery is a huge part of biotechnology.