DNA as hereditary material (Avery-MacLeod-McCarty)
ADN como material hereditario (principio transformante)
- Date
- 1944 · confidence high
- Place
- Rockefeller Institute, New York, United States
- Credited to
- Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod and Maclyn McCarty
- People
- 👤 Colin Munro MacLeod1909–1972👤 Maclyn McCarty1911–2005👤 Oswald Avery1877–1955
- Field
- Life & health
What was discovered
They identified DNA, not protein, as the 'transforming principle' that converts harmless pneumococci into virulent ones (Griffith's transformation, 1928).
He never received the Nobel Prize; many continued to believe in proteins until 1952.
What it led to
- molecular biology
- the search for the structure of DNA
- the Hershey-Chase experiment (1952)
Built on
- Nuclein / nucleic acids (Miescher)1869
- Griffith's transformation
- Miescher's nuclein
- chemistry of DNA (Levene, Chargaff)