Animal DNA is helping unlock some Dead Sea Scrolls secrets

June 2, 2020

2018 Blavatnik Awards Israel Laureate in Life Sciences, Dr. Oded Rechavi, has been featured in a recent CNN article for his latest study related to the origins of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Dr. Rechavi was recognized as a Blavatnik Laureate for discovering mechanisms of non-DNA-based inheritance that revolutionize our understanding of whether and how acquired traits can be passed on to the next generation. Using his expertise in genetics and evolution, Dr. Rechavi and a team of researchers have extracted DNA from the animal skins on which the Dead Sea Scrolls were written. The extracted DNA sequences can be used to determine which scroll fragments fit together. The full study was published in the journal, Cell.