Erwin Chargaff

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Erwin Chargaff
Manhattan, New York City, United States
NationalityAmerican (since 1940)
EducationMaximiliansgymnasium
Alma materVienna College of Technology (1924–1928)
Known forChargaff's rules
Spouse
Vera Broido
(m. 1928; died 1995)
ChildrenThomas Chargaff
AwardsPasteur Medal (1949),
Roosevelt Hospital (1974–1992)
Doctoral advisorFritz Feigl
Doctoral studentsSeymour S. Cohen, Boris Magasanik
Signature
Erwin Chargaff signature.png

Erwin Chargaff (11 August 1905 – 20 June 2002) was an Austro-Hungarian-born American biochemist, writer, Bucovinian Jew who emigrated to the United States during the Nazi era, and professor of biochemistry at Columbia University medical school.[1] He wrote a well-reviewed[2][3] autobiography, Heraclitean Fire: Sketches from a Life Before Nature.[4]

Early life

Chargaff was born on 11 August 1905 to a

At the outbreak of World War I, his family moved to Vienna, where he attended the Maximiliansgymnasium (now the Gymnasium Wasagasse). He then went on to the Vienna College of Technology (Technische Hochschule Wien) where he met his future wife Vera Broido.

From 1924 to 1928, Chargaff studied chemistry in Vienna, and earned a doctorate working under the direction of Fritz Feigl.[6][7]

He married Vera Broido in 1928. Chargaff had one son, Thomas Chargaff.

From 1925 to 1930, Chargaff served as the

University of Berlin (1930–1933) and then, being forced to resign his position in Germany as a result of the Nazi policies against Jews, as a research associate at the Pasteur Institute in Paris
(1933–1934).

Columbia University

Chargaff immigrated to

Roosevelt Hospital, where he continued to work until his retirement in 1992.[citation needed
]

He became an American citizen in 1940.

During his time at Columbia, Chargaff published numerous scientific papers, dealing primarily with the study of

Chargaff lectured about his results at

Cambridge University in 1952, with Watson and Crick in attendance.[13]

Chargaff's rules

Key conclusions from Erwin Chargaff's work are now known as

double helical
structure of DNA.

The second of Chargaff's rules is that the composition of DNA varies from one species to another, in particular in the relative amounts of A, G, T, and C bases. Such evidence of molecular diversity, which had been presumed absent from DNA, made DNA a more credible candidate for the

The first empirical generalization of Chargaff's second parity rule, called the Symmetry Principle, was proposed by Vinayakumar V. Prabhu [17] in 1993. This principle states that for any given oligonucleotide, its frequency is approximately equal to the frequency of its complementary reverse oligonucleotide. A theoretical generalization[18] was mathematically derived by Michel E. B. Yamagishi and Roberto H. Herai in 2011.[19]

Later life

Beginning in the 1950s, Chargaff became increasingly outspoken about the failure of the field of

unforeseen consequences.[1]

After

James Watson and Maurice Wilkins received the 1962 Nobel Prize for their work on discovering the double helix of DNA, Chargaff withdrew from his lab and wrote to scientists all over the world about his exclusion.[21]

Chargaff warned in his 1978 book Heraclitean Fire of a "molecular

Auschwitz" that "the technology of genetic engineering poses a greater threat to the world than the advent of nuclear technology. An irreversible attack on the biosphere is something so unheard of, so unthinkable to previous generations, that I only wish that mine had not been guilty of it".[22][23][24]

Helping a few couples condemned to childlessness towards getting a child may strike the obstetrical cytologist as such a laudable step, but we can see the beginning of human

hormones
and so on will be extracted instead of gold teeth.

— Erwin Chargaff, Heraclitean Fire

The

IVF technique earned his scathing disapprobation. In 1987, "Engineering a Molecular Nightmare" was published in the journal Nature,[25] which was then sent by David Alton and his colleagues in the All-Party Parliamentary Pro-Life Group (APPPLG) to every Westminster MP in an effort to minimise the forthcoming harm caused by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990.[22]

Chargaff wrote in 2002 that "There are two nuclei that man should never have touched: the atomic nucleus and the cell nucleus. The technology of genetic engineering poses a greater threat to the world than the advent of nuclear technology."[26]

My life has been marked by two immense and fateful discoveries: the splitting of the atom, the recognition of the chemistry of heredity and its subsequent manipulation. It is the mistreatment of nucleus that, in both instances, lies at the basis: the nucleus of the atom, the nucleus of the cell. In both instances do I have the feeling that science has transgressed a barrier that should have remained inviolate. As happens often in science, the first discoveries were made by thoroughly admirable men, but the crowd that came right after had a more mephitic smell.

— Chargaff in Weintraub (2002)

Chargaff died later that year on 20 June 2002 in

Manhattan, New York City.[27] He is buried in Mount Carmel Cemetery (Queens).[28]

Honors

Honors awarded to him include the

Heineken Prize (Amsterdam, 1964);[30] Gregor Mendel Medal (Halle, 1968);[29] and the National Medal of Science (1974).[31]

Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1961), the National Academy of Sciences (1965), and the American Philosophical Society (1979)[32] and the German Academy of Sciences.[5]

Honorary Doctorate awarded by Columbia University in 1975.[32]

Books authored

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Wright, Pearce (2 July 2002). "Erwin Chargaff: Disillusioned biochemist who pioneered our understanding of DNA". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 November 2011.
  2. ^ Hecht F (1979). "Hecht F. Heraclitean fire. Sketches from a life before nature". American Journal of Human Genetics. 31 (6): 759.
  3. .
  4. .
  5. ^ .
  6. ^ Erwin Chargaff Summary – via www.bookrags.com.
  7. ^ a b c d Weintraub, Bob (September 2006). "Erwin Chargaff and Chargaff's Rules". Chemistry in Israel - Bulletin of the Israel Chemical Society (22): 29–31.
  8. ^
    JSTOR 1558287
    .
  9. .
  10. .
  11. .
  12. .
  13. .
  14. ^ Levine, P.A. (1909). "Yeast nucleic acid". Biochem. Z. 17: 120–131.
  15. .
  16. ^ Baianu, I.C. (2 February 2010). Mathematical and Theoretical Biology. Volume 2 - Mathematical and Molecular Biophysics. I.C. Baianu.
  17. PMID 8332488
    .
  18. .
  19. .
  20. .
  21. ^ Judson, Horace (20 October 2003). "No Nobel Prize for Whining". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 August 2007.
  22. ^ a b "Check the Facts: "A Gigantic Slaughterhouse ..."". August 2011.
  23. .
  24. ^ "Eminent Scientists Comment on the Dangers of Genetically Engineered Foods".
  25. S2CID 28373983
    .
  26. ^ Serra, Miquel Àngel (20 February 2018). ""Genetics and human improvement"". Fundacio Víctor Grífols i Lucas Foundation.
  27. ^ Wade, Nicholas (30 June 2002). "Erwin Chargaff, 96, Pioneer In DNA Chemical Research". The New York Times. Retrieved 23 December 2014. Erwin Chargaff, whose research into the chemical composition of DNA helped lay the groundwork for James Watson and Francis Crick's discovery of its double-helix structure — the pivotal finding of 20th-century biology — died on June 20 in a New York hospital. He was 96.
  28. ^ Erwin Chargaff in Findagrave.com
  29. ^ .
  30. ^ a b "Erwin Chargaff, USA — KNAW".
  31. ^ "The President's National Medal of Science: Recipient Details - NSF - National Science Foundation". www.nsf.gov.
  32. ^ a b Cohen, Seymour Stanley. "Erwin Chargaff 1905 – 2002: A Biographical Memoir by Seymour Cohen with selected bibliography by Robert Lehman" (PDF). Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 148 (4).

Sources

External links