Description
Book SynopsisThis is a book which examines and explores the discoveries as well as the lives of twenty-five stellar scientists who have all contributed in different ways to the field that we know today as "molecular biology". The book covers a vast timeline from the last century to present day advances and concerns such as viral replication and transmission. The book examines the foundational structures of the field as well as how many scientists and basic scientific knowledge has contributed to our current understanding. Beginning with DNA (as hereditary material) and evolving into recombinant DNA and replication and somatic DNA, the book covers the way in which scientists have examined and explored these realms and some of the resultant discoveries which have led to the Nobel Prize. Nobel prize winners are not born, but they are made -- they are made from years of education, years of familial nurturance, years of mentoring by other scientists (either formally or informally) and of course by luck, chance, fate and surreptitious encounters. Some of our scientists have spent years studying the fruit fly (drosophila), fly genetics, mutations, replications, and of course, genes, gene replication, split genes and "jumping genes". For those seeking an overview of the field of molecular biology this text will provide an overview of the lives of those who have delved most deeply into these issues and those whose discoveries have resulted in the Nobel Prize. The test is certainly relevant in today's world as we encounter and challenge the dreaded ever evolving virus known as Covid-19 which seems intent on replicating, changing, evolving and challenging mankind and our scientific community.
Table of ContentsPreface; Dedications; Biographies; Timeline of Molecular Biologists; Oswald Theodore Avery: Discussing Molecular Biology and Biologists -- Who Were They and What Did They Discover? Oswald Theodore Avery!; George Beadle: From Wahoo, Nebraska to the Nobel Prize -- George Beadle, His Work and Many Contributions to Molecular Biology; Seymour Benzer: What happens to people who read atomic physics in the synagogue?; Paul Berg and Recombinant DNA; Sydney Brenner: From South Africa to Cambridge to the Nobel Prize; Herbert Boyer: Who was he, and what did he have to do with Molecular Biology?; Stanley Norman Cohen and His Contributions to Molecular Biology; Erwin Chargaff: Precursor to Watson and Crick?; Max Delbruck: Pioneer of Molecular Biology; Joshua Lederberg: Bacteria Can Mate? Who Would Have Thought?; Susan Lindquist and Prions, Yeast, and Heat Shock Proteins; Salvador Luria and Viral Replication: Understanding it, Preventing it?; Barbara McClintock and Jumping Genes; Matthew Meselson: Born in Denver Colorado: Impacted the World; Thomas Hunt Morgan: The Fly Room and Thomas Hunt Morgan Who was he, and what did he investigate?; Hermann Joseph Muller: The Realm of Genetic Mutations; Marshall Nirenberg: The Mystery of the Genetic Code Puzzle!; Reiji Okazaki: DNA Replication; Mark Ptashne: What is Genetic Switching and Phage Lambda Concerns?; Richard J Roberts: From Derby England to Split Genes and the Nobel Prize; Hamilton O Smith: An American Microbiologist, Restriction Endonucleases, and the Nobel Prize; Alfred H Sturdevant and the First Gene Map of the Fruit Fly; Edward Tatum: Metabolism: Controlling Genes, Mold Mutants, and the Nobel Prize; Susumu Tonegawa: Somatic Cells, DNA Recombination, and Antibody Diversity; Craig Venter and the Human Genome Project; Bibliography.
