Concept 17 A gene is made of DNA.
Maclyn McCarty
Maclyn McCarty was Professor Emeritus at the Rockefeller University. He worked with Oswald Avery on studying and characterizing the transforming ability of DNA.
- Commenting on Avery as a scientific group leader and as a person.
- Relating how Avery was a successful orator while an undergraduate at Colgate University, and his subsequent disdain for public speaking as a scientist.
- Describing the in vitro transformation experiments: the effect of removing polysaccharides from the bacterial extracts.
- Describing the in vitro transformation experiments: the effect of destroying nucleic acids.
- Characterizing the resistence to the discovery of DNA as the transforming factor: running against existing dogma.
- How the bacterial transformation experiments provided the first real opportunity to study the chemical nature of the gene.
DNA and proteins are key molecules of the cell nucleus.
One gene makes one protein.
A gene is made of DNA.
Bacteria and viruses have DNA too.
The DNA molecule is shaped like a twisted ladder.
A half DNA ladder is a template for copying the whole.
RNA is an intermediary between DNA and protein.
DNA words are three letters long.
A gene is a discrete sequence of DNA nucleotides.
The RNA message is sometimes edited.
Some viruses store genetic information in RNA.
RNA was the first genetic molecule.
Mutations are changes in genetic information.
Some types of mutations are automatically repaired.