Papers of Pioneering Molecular Biologist Sol Spiegelman Added to Profiles in Science®
The National Library of Medicine® announces the release of an extensive selection from the papers of Sol Spiegelman (1914-1983), a pioneering molecular biologist whose discoveries helped reveal the mechanisms of gene action and laid the foundations of recombinant DNA technology, on the Library's Profiles in Science Web site.
"Sol Spiegelman was an extraordinarily creative scientist; his achievements include the first test-tube synthesis of an infective virus RNA and the development of RNA-DNA hybridization, an essential technique in molecular biology," said Donald A. B. Lindberg, M.D., director of the National Library of Medicine.
Born and raised in New York City, Spiegelman pursued his early scientific studies at City College. Summer work at hospital research labs sparked his interest in bacterial mutations. His Ph.D. research — begun at Columbia University, and finished in 1944 at Washington University in St. Louis — verified earlier observations that bacteria could sometimes adapt to the presence of novel nutrient substances by producing the enzymes necessary to digest them, without undergoing a genetic mutation. He later showed that genes for making various enzymes could be turned off and on by the presence of different nutrients. This technique, enzyme induction, became a powerful tool for understanding how the genetic information encoded in DNA is transcribed to produce enzymes that help direct cellular life processes.
With this addition, the number of prominent researchers, public health officials, and promoters of medical research whose personal and professional records are presented on Profiles has grown to twenty-three.
