Describe the role of DNA polymerase in DNA replication.

DNA polymerase is an enzyme that catalyses the synthesis of DNA molecules from free nucleotides. After DNA helicase unwinds the DNA molecule, DNA polymerase reads the existing DNA strands and incorporates complementary nucleotides one by one to assemble a chain.
DNA polymerase works in pairs to replicate both strands of the original DNA molecule. However, the strands in a double helix run in opposite directions and DNA polymerase can only add nucleotides in one direction. This means that one strand can be replicated from end to end continuously. But the other strand is read in small sections with DNA polymerase detaching and attaching at points up the chain.