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Wilkins, Maurice Hugh Frederick

(Encyclopedia)Wilkins, Maurice Hugh Frederick, 1916–2004, British biophysicist, b. New Zealand, Ph.D. Univ. of Birmingham, 1940. He conducted research at the Univ. of St. Andrews, Scotland, and at Kings College, ...

Yonath, Ada E.

(Encyclopedia)Yonath, Ada E., 1939–, Israeli crystallographer, Ph.D. Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovat, Israel, 1968. Yonath has been a researcher and professor at the Weizmann Institute since 1970. She was ...

nucleotide

(Encyclopedia)nucleotide no͞oˈklēətīdˌ, nyo͞oˈ– [key], organic substance that serves as a monomer in forming nucleic acids. Nucleotides consist of either a purine or a pyrimidine base, a ribose or deoxyri...

protoplasm

(Encyclopedia)protoplasm, term once used for the fundamental material of which all living things were thought to be composed. It was studied by a number of early scientists, especially by Félix Dujardin, J. E. Pur...

Steitz, Thomas Arthur

(Encyclopedia)Steitz, Thomas Arthur, 1940–2018, American biophysicist and biochemist, b. Milwaukee, Ph.D. Harvard, 1966. Steitz was a professor at Yale from 1970 and a researcher at the Howard Hughes Medical Inst...

leucine

(Encyclopedia)CE5 leucine lo͞oˈsēn [key], organic compund, one of the 20 amino acids commonly found in animal proteins. Only the l-stereooisomer appears in mammalian protein. It is one of several essential am...

Ramakrishnan, Venkatraman

(Encyclopedia)Ramakrishnan, Venkatraman, 1952–, American molecular biologist, b. India, Ph.D. Ohio Univ., 1976. He was a researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (1982–83) and at Brookhaven National Laborato...

cytosine

(Encyclopedia)cytosine sīˈtōsēnˌ [key], organic base of the pyrimidine family. It was isolated from the nucleic acid of calf thymus tissue in 1894. A suggested structure for cytosine, published in 1903, was co...

virology

(Encyclopedia)virology, study of viruses and their role in disease. Many viruses, such as animal RNA viruses and viruses that infect bacteria, or bacteriophages, have become useful laboratory tools in genetic studi...

Jacob, François

(Encyclopedia)Jacob, François fräNswäˈ zhäkôbˈ [key], 1920–2013, French biologist and geneticist, educated at the Sorbonne. His medical studies were interrupted by World War II. He joined the Free French F...

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