Hershey-Chase Experiment

For my final essay, I have chosen to describe, what I feel, are the five most important experiments on DNA as our hereditary material and its structure. I will also give a brief bio on the scientists in each experiment. For the five experiments, I have chosen the following: Meischer and the discovery of DNA, Griffith and the discovery of the phenomena transformation property, Hammerling and the discovery of cell nucleus role in reproduction, and Hershey-Chase for their conformation that DNA and not protein was the source for heredity. Without further ado, I will now jump into the first of my chosen few scientists and their experiments. I will first describe Meischer and his contributions to the history of DNA knowledge. Meischer was a Swiss physician and biologist who carried out …show more content…
She is also the first female scientist that I came across in a very male dominated field of genetics and biology. The Hershey-Chase experiment was one in 1952 (Dnaftb, n/a) where Hershey marked bacteriophage DNA and protein shells to prove that DNA was passed down and protein was not. Hershey knew that bacteriophages contained basically two parts, a protein shell, and DNA. He used a radioactive isotope of phosphorus (which phosphorous isn 't found in DNA) to "mark" the DNA of the bacteriophage (Dnaftb, n/a). He then used a radioactive isotope of Sulphur to "mark" the protein in the shell of the bacteriophage. After the bacteriophage, DNA and Protein were marked he released them into containers of unlabeled bacteria to see how the marked materials were transferred if any. After a time, he then took the bacteria, which at that time had a good long time with the parasitic bacteriophages, and proceeded to throw both phosphorous, and the Sulphur bacteriophage infected bacteria batches in a blender to knock the bacteriophages from the bacteria (Dnaftb,