Maclyn McCarty

Maclyn McCarty

Maclyn McCarty (June 9, 1911 – January 2, 2005) was an American geneticist, a research scientist described in 2005 as "the last surviving member of a Manhattan scientific team that overturned medical dogma in the 1940s and became the first to demonstrate that genes were made of DNA." He had worked at Rockefeller University "for more than 60 years." 1994 marked 50 years since this work's release.McCarty devoted his life as a physician-scientist to studying infectious disease organisms, and was best known for his part in the monumental discovery that DNA, rather than protein, constituted the chemical nature of a gene. Uncovering the molecular secret of the gene in question — that for the capsular polysaccharide of pneumococcal bacteria — led the way to studying heredity not only through genetics but also through chemistry. The team responsible for this feat is known as the Avery–MacLeod–McCarty experiment. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Maclyn McCarty has received more than 89,643 page views. His biography is available in 22 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 21 in 2019). Maclyn McCarty is the 456th most popular chemist (down from 418th in 2019), the 5,809th most popular biography from United States (down from 4,853rd in 2019) and the 81st most popular American Chemist.