Why was it important to determine the structure of dna to understand how dna stored, copied, and transmitted information?

Structure of DNA provides basic information about its packing, replication and copying of the stored genetic information. It tells how the parent DNA strands are copied during the process of cell division.

Explanation:

The double-helical structure of DNA is the basis for its ability to store the genetic information, to replicate itself and to transmit the genetic information. DNA is a polymer of four nucleotides. It stores the genetic information in the sequence of these four nucleotides. The complementary base pairing between the DNA bases tells how DNA template strands are copied during the process of replication.

The newly formed DNA strands have complementary nucleotide sequence to the template DNA strands. Similarly, during the transmission of genetic information, the nucleotide sequence of the DNA is copied into the nucleotide sequence of the mRNA. Therefore, knowledge about the structure of DNA is required to understand its functions.

"1. it should be, it has been for about 20 years, and it's really not much different in the end than breeding animals to have particular traits. there are always concerns about genetically engineered animals/plants affecting the environment in unexpected negative ways, but i can't think of an example where the fears didn't turn out to be baseless.  

first, as you point out, it would be a great advance in pharmacology, to be able to tailor drugs and their doses to me. the pros involve better medical treatment. the cons involve privacy issues like insurance companies denying coverage to people with genetic risk factors. looking at dna markers wouldn't affect the frequency of genetic diseases, but it would allow detection of them earlier. and ok, actually i suppose that if people used this information to avoid having children with genetic diseases, some might decrease in frequency."