Answer:
Perhaps the most fundamental property of all living things is the ability to reproduce. All organisms inherit the genetic information specifying their structure and function from their parents. Likewise, all cells arise from preexisting cells, so the genetic material must be replicated and passed from parent to progeny cell at each cell division. How genetic information is replicated and transmitted from cell to cell and organism to organism thus represents a question that is central to all of biology. Consequently, elucidation of the mechanisms of genetic transmission and identification of the genetic material as DNA were discoveries that formed the foundation of our current understanding of biology at the molecular level.
