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Courtesy MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. |
Frederick Sanger has the very rare distinction of having won two Nobel Prizes, in 1958 and 1980, both in chemistry. Growing up in England, the son of a doctor, Sanger’s interest in science was encouraged at home. He had wanted to study medicine like his father but decided studying biochemistry was more suited to his style than medical practice. Sanger spent his career investigating the macromolecules of life, most notably proteins and DNA. While proteins are long chains of various amino acids joined chemically, DNA is made of long chains of sugars, phosphates, and purine bases. In the 1950s Sanger determined the exact sequence of amino acids that makes up bovine insulin. For this he was awarded his first Nobel Prize. In studying DNA Sanger was also concerned with sequences. He was able to determine the sequence of purine bases in the entire DNA molecule of a virus called bacteriophages fX174, the first ever sequencing of the entire genome of any organism. In doing so he developed novel techniques for DNA sequencing, including the slicing of the DNA into small strands before sequencing. For his sequencing of the bacteriophages fX174 genome he received his second Nobel Prize, which he shared with Walter Gilbert and Paul Berg. |
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