DNA Day 2027 is on Sunday

About DNA Day

DNA Day, officially National DNA Day, invites students, teachers and the public to learn how genetics and genomics shape health, medicine and everyday life. Its date points to two events. On April 25, 1953, the journal Nature printed three back-to-back papers on the structure of DNA: James Watson and Francis Crick's double-helix model, followed by X-ray diffraction evidence from Maurice Wilkins, Alexander Stokes and Herbert Wilson, and from Rosalind Franklin and Raymond Gosling. Fifty years later, in April 2003, the international Human Genome Project announced that it had produced an essentially complete sequence of the human genome.

The 108th Congress passed concurrent resolutions designating DNA Day in 2003, and the National Human Genome Research Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, has celebrated it every April 25 since. NHGRI offers a free starter kit and activity ideas for classrooms, and it hosts the annual Louise M. Slaughter National DNA Day Lecture.

The science has kept moving since 2003. The genome finished that year covered about 92% of the human genome; the rest was made of highly repetitive DNA that the technology of the time could not read. In 2022, the Telomere-to-Telomere consortium reported the first complete, gap-free human genome sequence, using long-read sequencing and newer computational tools. The day is also a chance to revisit how the double helix was found, including the X-ray work of Franklin and Gosling that supported the model.

Sources: National Human Genome Research Institute: National DNA Day, National Human Genome Research Institute: Human Genome Project Fact Sheet, National Human Genome Research Institute: The human genome sequence is now complete (2022), Nature: The structure of DNA (2019 retrospective). How we check dates.

How to mark DNA Day

• Extract DNA from strawberries or bananas using dish soap, salt and cold rubbing alcohol, a classic kitchen experiment best done with adult supervision.
• Build a double-helix model from paper, pipe cleaners or candy, color-coding the four bases and pairing A with T and C with G.
• Read Watson and Crick's short 1953 paper, then look up Rosalind Franklin's Photo 51 and the role her data played.
• Gather your family's health history and share it with your doctor, who can tell you whether genetic counseling or testing makes sense for you.
• Use NHGRI's free DNA Day classroom materials or watch its annual DNA Day lecture.

DNA Day dates