Word: dna
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Isolated DNA...
...Genetic information is contained in the long strands of a molecule called deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). The three Med School researchers isolated a small section of E. Coli DNA that controls the bacteria's ability to use a sugar called lactose...
...extract this gene, the scientists took advantage of the fact that when a virus infects a bacterium it sometimes removes a piece of the bacterium's DNA. They infected E. coli with two types of viruses that were specifically bred to remove the lactose gene from E. coli...
Michigan-born Hershey, who began exchanging information with Delbruck and Luria in 1942, found more conclusive evidence for the genetic recombination that Delbrück had discovered. In 1952, Hershey proved that the virus, which consists simply of nucleic acid (DNA) surrounded by a coat of protein, leaves its coat behind as it invades a cell. So it must be the DNA that contains the genetic information...
These and other discoveries led scientists to concentrate on the structure of the DNA molecule. The finding in 1953 by James Watson and Francis Crick that the typical DNA molecule consists of a double helix enabled scientists to reduce to relatively simple chemical terms the process by which inherited traits are passed on. But it was the contributions of Delbruck, Luria and Hershey that, in the words of the Nobel committee "set the solid foundation on which modern molecular biology rests...