Word: weissmann
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Others include the fusion of cells, DNA synthesis and the creation of hybridomas, long-lived cells that are designed to produce pure antibodies for use against disease. But of all these marvels, it is gene splicing that scientists consider the most exciting. Says the University of Zurich's Charles Weissmann, 50, who last year became the first scientist to make bacteria produce a facsimile of human interferon: "Biology has become as unthinkable without gene-splicing techniques as sending an explorer into the jungle without a compass...
...begins cranking out the protein and, given the proper nourishment, making millions of carbon copies of itself, each capable of producing the same protein. Though each creates only a tiny amount, the cumulative output can be substantial. Biogen's accomplishment, brought off by Swiss Molecular Biologist Charles Weissmann and his international team of colleagues, was to re-engineer E. coli so that it would produce largely complete molecules of human leukocyte IF. At Harvard, Biochemist Tadatsugu Taniguchi, who first isolated an interferon gene while at the Japanese Foundation for Cancer Research, and Molecular Biologist Mark Ptashne seem on the verge...
...interferon is produced by virtually all cells in the human body, which get their instructions for making it from a specific gene in their DNA; these are passed on to the cells' protein-manufacturing sites by a genetic molecule known as messenger RNA. But for Hungarian-born Charles Weissmann of the University of Zurich, and his Swiss, Finnish and Japanese colleagues, the natural process was only a starting point. After extracting messenger RNAs from human white blood cells, which were producing interferon, they used these molecules to generate sections of DNA that they hoped would include the required gene...