History
Reverse transcriptase was discovered by Howard Temin at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in RSV virions, and independently isolated by David Baltimore in 1970 at MIT from two RNA tumour viruses: R-MLV and again RSV. For their achievements, both shared the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (with Renato Dulbecco).
The idea of reverse transcription was very unpopular at first as it contradicted the central dogma of molecular biology which states that DNA is transcribed into RNA which is then translated into proteins. However, in 1970 when the scientists Howard Temin and David Baltimore both independently discovered the enzyme responsible for reverse transcription, named reverse transcriptase, the possibility that genetic information could be passed on in this manner was finally accepted.
Read more about this topic: Reverse Transcriptase
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“If usually the “present age” is no very long time, still, at our pleasure, or in the service of some such unity of meaning as the history of civilization, or the study of geology, may suggest, we may conceive the present as extending over many centuries, or over a hundred thousand years.”
—Josiah Royce (1855–1916)
“What would we not give for some great poem to read now, which would be in harmony with the scenery,—for if men read aright, methinks they would never read anything but poems. No history nor philosophy can supply their place.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Regarding History as the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of States, and the virtue of individuals have been victimized—the question involuntarily arises—to what principle, to what final aim these enormous sacrifices have been offered.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)