Race For DNA Research

For about three decades many scientists did not believe DNA contained genetic material because it was not seen as complex due to the fact not much was known about it yet, so many presumed proteins were the genetic material of life. It was not until scholars such as Frederick Griffith, Meselson-Stahl, James Watson, Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins, Rosalind Franklin, Avery, McCarty, Erwin Chargaff and many more conducted experiments that would expose astonishing discovering that will lead to the understanding of DNA also known as the Race for DNA. It began with Frederick Griffith’s Experiment “Transforming Factor”, conducted in 1928 testing bacteria for pneumonia and injecting them into mice. He noticed something was being transferred from the smooth strain to the rough strain when he mixed them together; he did not know what …show more content…
In the next experiment, conducted by Avery, McCarty, and MacLeod, they aimed to answer Griffith’s questions. Upon isolating the bacteria to its essential parts – RNA, Protein and DNA, they observed when they added enzymes that could breakdown each factor, they found out it [rough strain] was no longer transferred with deoxyribonuclease was added meaning they found what transferred. Although the question was answered, their data collected was ignored until the next experiment conducted by Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase who needed to conclude that it was strictly DNA being transferred not proteins, which many scientists thought proteins created life.
In their experiment, they used bacteriophages, which is a virus that infects a bacterium. They used sulfur, which is found in proteins to see what color the bacteriophages would reproduce. As for the phosphorus labeled bacteriophages which is found in DNA in the other experiment. The experiment with Phosphorous proved DNA was the hereditary material. In the 50s scientists James Watson and Francis Crick who