Deceased Frederick Sanger, a double Nobel Prize winner in chemistry. He did not want ... - Gazeta Wyborcza

Frederick Sanger (Image: Wikipedia)

Hailing from the UK two-time Nobel Prize winner Frederick Sanger, died on Wednesday at the age of 95 years – said the University of Cambridge. To him we owe the genetic tests commonly used in medicine. His group deciphered the first portion of the human genome.

When talking about DNA, in the first place one thinks of James Watson and Francis Crick, who in 1953 first conceived the correct model of the acid, which is a double helix. Both were colleagues Sanger at Cambridge University. Accounted for the vast majority of them famous. In the pub, The Eagle, where he celebrated his discovery, today there is a beer Eagle `s DNA, brewed in honor of the event. In honor of Frederick Sanger nobody brewed beer.

Was outside the scientific unknown. But it is to him we owe the genetic testing commonly used in medicine. While Crick and Watson came up with the right idea, it Sanger pierced her hard work in the real benefits. He and his team have discovered methods to read the genetic information of DNA to replicate and use chemicals to break it into short lengths. His group deciphered the first portion of the human genome.

British scientist received his first Nobel Prize in 1958 for his research on the structure of insulin. The second time, received this award in 1980, when recognized for his work on DNA sequencing.

He retired in 1983 and three years later the British Queen received the highest British award – the Order of Merit. Nobility did not accept. He explained to reporters that he does not care “Sir” before the name. According to the newspaper The Guardian said about himself, “I’m just a guy rummager in the lab.”

In the history of the Nobel Prize were only four people who have been granted her twice: Maria Sklodowska-Curie, Linus Pauling, John Bardeen and Sanger, who was the only British Nobel Prize winners among two-fold. – The two key findings, sequencing of proteins and nucleic acids, open field for molecular biology, genetics and genomics – said in an official statement Cambridge University professor Colin Balkemore. He stressed, however, that Sanger was a true hero of the twentieth-century British science. In his honor, called the Institute of Cambridge University who studies the genome.