Graphene nanoplatelets with lateral dimensions of ∼50–200 nm and thicknesses <2 nm were utilized for the extraction of nucleic acids (NAs) from eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells. The graphene nanoplatelets (both chemically exfoliated graphene oxide nanoplatelets and hydrazine-reduced graphene oxide nanoplatelets) successfully extracted plasmid DNA (pDNA) from Escherichia coli bacteria, comparable to a conventional phenol–chloroform (PC) method. Furthermore, it was found that the yield of graphene nanoplatelets in genomic DNA (gDNA) and RNA extractions from embryonic stem cells (ESCs) was also comparable to the yield of the conventional methods. The effects of the graphene nanoplatelets on restriction enzyme digestion of the pDNA and gene amplification of all the extracted NAs (including pDNA, gDNA and RNA) were also investigated in order to confirm the quality of the extractions. These results not only demonstrated an easy gene extraction capability of graphene nanoplatelets with a high gene amplification, but also provide an easy, fast, inexpensive and biocompatible DNA/RNA extraction method.