Question: What happens to your genes when you die?

Lena Ciric answered on 9 Mar 2012:

Hi Holly. This is a great question. There are a number of ways of looking at it.

You share a lot of your genes with your family, so when you die a lot of your genes will live on in your children (they share half of your genes) and the new generations of your siblings and cousins.

Genes are not “alive” and can’t survive without the organism they’re in. Some scientists even believe that the only reason we are here is to pass on our genes and that our genes drive us to have children in order to do this.

Looking at it from a darker point of view, once you die your cells die. As your body decomposes, the cells will burst and the genes (or DNA) spill out of the cells. Generally, DNA can’t live for very long outside living cells as it is quickly broken down by various biological processes and the genes will perish.

There are ways of preserving your DNA, for example by freezing it in liquid nitrogen. This way your genes can survive beyond your lifetime. In theory, a new person could be made in the future using this DNA. Like Dolly the sheep – look her up: http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/antenna/dolly/. There are difficult ethical questions surrounding this sort of thing, though.