Person who invented pcr

Kary Mullis, the American biochemist who won the chemistry Nobel prize for inventing the polymerase chain reaction PCR , has died. PCR uses an enzyme — a heat stable DNA polymerase — that is cycled through sequences of heating and cooling to amplify DNA, creating millions of copies of a chosen sequence, which can then be used for analysis or experimentation.

It has become an indispensable technique in molecular biology. Mullis was born in in rural North Carolina in the US. During high school, he developed an interest in science, and went on to study chemistry at the Georgia Institute of Technology, later completing a PhD in biochemistry at the University of California, Berkeley in After undergoing some refinements, the technique quickly became a go-to method in forensic science and biomedical research.

In Mullis shared the chemistry Nobel with Michael Smith , another biochemist who had developed a way to introduce specific mutations into DNA. Since winning the Nobel, Mullis has also become well-known for his eccentric views. He has publicly disagreed with the scientific consensus on the causes of climate change and ozone depletion, and said that he believes that the connection between HIV and Aids is a conspiracy.

Easily synthesized in a lab, these primers are designed to click on next to the targeted section of DNA and prevent the two original strands from coming back together. The places on the DNA strands where the primers attach then serve as landing pads for an enzyme called DNA polymerase. It marches down the exposed strand, snapping DNA building blocks known as nucleotides into the correct positions to reconstruct the complementary strands.

Each copy can again be unwound to make more templates. But Mullis kept tinkering with the idea, and the following year he was able to bring them some experimental data that seemed to show the chain reaction was working. This caught the attention of several Cetus colleagues, especially biochemist Thomas White. Mullis helped White rebuild his car engine and ordained White as a Universal Life minister.

White asked Mullis to focus exclusively on getting PCR to work. With the proof-of-concept demonstrated, getting a publication and, eventually, a patent became top priority. But Mullis kept putting off writing the paper.

People had doubted him, White says, and procrastinating on the paper was his revenge. Frustrated by the wait, Saiki co-authored a paper in the journal Science about a test for sickle cell anemia that included the first published description of PCR. However, that paper only hinted at its power as a standalone technique. White pleaded with Mullis to finish his paper explaining PCR in detail, and Mullis eventually did and submitted it to Nature.

It was rejected. Science passed on it as well. It ended up being published in in Methods in Enzymology. By then, Mullis had left Cetus, aggrieved chiefly by the fact he wasn't the first author on the more prestigious Science paper. In his lifetime, Mullis also denied that HIV causes AIDS, questioned human influence on climate change, gave talks featuring images of nude women, and made sexist remarks to journalists.

White still reminisces about his unquestionable creativity, sharp wit, and good humor—but laments how the myth took over the man. Two problems still made the process clunky to perform. For starters, the heat necessary to perform a cycle was degrading that all-important DNA polymerase, the piece required to construct each DNA copy. Before leaving, Mullis had proposed a solution: Use a polymerase from the microbes discovered in the boiling-hot pools of Yellowstone National Park.

The thinking was that if these organisms can live and replicate at high temperatures, their DNA polymerases must be able to tolerate such extremes. Cycling the sample through different temperature regimes by hand was mind-numbingly tedious, and in her case, the work had to be done in a biocontainment facility wearing full personal protective equipment.

Today, automated thermal cyclers based on the idea are standard in genetics laboratories around the world. White ended up running the PCR division there, along with over a hundred Cetus scientists he took with him. Since then, PCR usage has multiplied exponentially, with numerous adaptations for various applications. Medical diagnosis, forensics, food safety, crop development, even the search for the origin of humanity—the boundaries of all these fields and more were busted wide open with the power of PCR.

Genomics researcher Eric Green was finishing up an M. Pasahow graduated from Stanford University in and received his law degree from the University of California at Berkeley School of Law in He joined the firm of McCutchen, Doyle, Brown, and Enersen in , and presently chairs the firm's intellectual property group. He had advised clients and handled complex litigation involving patent, copyright, trademark, trade secret, licensing, export-import, noncompetition, and trade regulation disputes, most involving biotechnology, computer hardware and software and other advanced technology products.

He led the group of lawyers which successfully obtained a jury verdict upholding Cetus' landmark polymerase chain reaction patents against the Dupont Company challenge. Enrico Picozza began work with Perkin-Elmer in June , shortly after receiving his degree from the University of Connecticut. Currently, he is working as senior technical specialist, and is devoted to specifying, developing, testing and evaluating instrumentation primarily for the PCR market.

Riccardo Pigliucci earned his degree in chemistry in Milan, Italy and is a graduate of the Management Program at the Northeastern University. He joined Perkin-Elmer in and held numerous management positions in analytical instrument operations in Europe as well as in the U.

He was appointed general manager of the U. Instrument Division in after serving as director of Worldwide Instrument Marketing since In , Pigliucci was appointed a sector vice-president in Connecticut Operations. The following year, he was elected corporate vice-president. Perkin-Elmer Instruments. He became president of the Instrument Group in and was named senior vice-president of Perkin-Elmer Corporation in In , he was elected president and chief operating officer.

He is also a director of the Corporation. Saiki served one year as a laboratory technician in their Department of Microbiology. In , he transferred to Washington University to serve as a lab technician in the Biology Department. In , he was promoted to research associate in the Department of Human Genetics and was named scientist in that department in Saiki transferred to Roche Molecular Systems in to serve as research investigator in the Department of Human Genetics.

Stephen Scharf received a degree in bacteriology from University of California, Davis. He worked there as a biochemist for four and a half years until , when he came to Cetus. Currently, he serves as senior scientist at Roche Molecular Systems. Her professional career began as a microbiologist for the E.

Dupont de Nemours Company. Seyfried joined Perkin-Elmer in From to , she served as business director for Biotechnology Instrument Systems. She was responsible for managing the development, commercialization, and marketing of the PCR business as part of the Perkin-Elmer Cetus Joint Venture, and the subsequent strategic alliance with Hoffman-LaRoche.

She was also instrumental in the Perkin-Elmer Applied Biosystems merger. Sninsky accepted a postdoctoral fellowship from the Departments of Genetics and Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

In , he accepted an assistant professorship at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He joined the Cetus Corporation in as a senior scientist in the Department of Microbial Genetics. In , he was appointed director of the Diagnostics Program and of the Department of Infectious Diseases. In , he was promoted to senior director of both of those departments. Sninsky transferred to Roche Molecular Systems in to serve as senior director for research.

Robert Watson , who joined Cetus in , is currently functioning as a research investigator with Roche Molecular Systems, working on nucleic acid-based diagnostics. Thomas J. White graduated from John Hopkins University in with a B. After serving for four years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Liberia, he received his Ph. In , he joined the Cetus Corporation as a scientist, and was promoted to director of Molecular and Biological Research and associate director of Research and Development in He was appointed vice president of Research in He transferred to Roche Diagnostics Research in to serve as senior director and in was appointed vice president of Research and Development of Roche Molecular Systems and associate vice president of Hoffman-LaRoche, Incorporated.

Joseph Widunas , who graduated from the University of Illinois with a degree in engineering in , came to Cetus in as a sound engineer. Now director of new product development for Colestech Corporation, Hayward, California, he was instrumental in the development of the second Mr.