Biochemists call it the central dogma: Genetic material, in the form of a long nucleic acid polymer called DNA, stores a digital record of every protein's design.

The basic unit of DNA is a linear polymer of four different monomeric subunits, deoxyribonucleotides, arranged in a precise linear sequence.

DNA is made of polynucleotides, and it is the specific sequence of bases along a polynucleotide chain that determines the biological proteins of the polymer.