Marshall+Nirenberg

=**Marshall Nirenberg** = **Julia Mackin-McLaughlin, Kylie Freeston, Christine Yin, David Kauffman**



__Biographical History__:


 * Marshall Nirenberg was born in New York in 1927, but he lived in Florida.
 * His interest in bird watching led to his interest in science.
 * He graduated from University of Florida with a degree in Zoology and Chemistry
 * He got his Ph.D. in biological chemistry from U of Michigan
 * He worked at the National Institute of Health in 1957
 * worked as a post doctorate fellow at the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases
 * In 1968 he won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine along with Har Gobind Khorana and Robert Holley
 * He died just last year on January 15, 2010

__Contribution to Genetics:__

 His contribution to Genetics was that he d eciphered the first codon in 1961. He created an artificial RNA molecule with polyuridylic acid and formed the amino acid phenylalanine. Through his and Heinrich Matthaei's experimenting, they discovered that the codon UUU is the code for phenylalanine. Nirenberg also established the rules of which DNA is translated into proteins.

(left: Heinrich Matthaei and to the right: Marshall Nirenberg)

__Organism used in his experiment__: E-Coli

__His experiment__:


 * 1) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%; line-height: normal; white-space: pre-wrap;">The first step is to make a cell-free environment. This means, that cells being used must be lysed so contents, which can synthesize RNA, are able to be utilized.
 * 2) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%; line-height: normal; white-space: pre-wrap;">In Nirenberg's experiment, he used E-coli. Using a mortar and pestle, he crushed them and created the cell-free environment.
 * 3) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%; line-height: normal; white-space: pre-wrap;">Used 20 test tubes, each filled with a different amino acid. One tube, called the "hot tube" was tagged with radioactive ions so the reaction could be watched. (The "hot" tube changed each experiment run, allowing them to test all amino acids in the tubes)
 * 4) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%; line-height: normal; white-space: pre-wrap;">The one tube that was tagged contained the amino acid phenylaline.
 * 5) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%; line-height: normal; white-space: pre-wrap;">Placed the synthetic RNA, made entirely up of codon UUU, into the tagged phenylalanine tube.
 * 6) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%; line-height: normal; white-space: pre-wrap;">The "cold" or not-tagged tubes had 7,000 counts, but the phenylaline tube had 38,000 counts per milligram of proteins.
 * 7) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%; line-height: normal; white-space: pre-wrap;">The experiment's results showed that UUU, or Poly-U, makes up the amino acid phenylaline.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;"> They continued using the basic procedure but with different RNA strands made up of codons other than UUU, and also using different amino acids.

=
<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%; line-height: normal;"><span style="color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">__Significance of research__ <span style="color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: ======
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They deciphered all possible RNA codons for all 20 amino acids based on their logic of 64 possible triplet combinations (4^3)
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They figured out what role DNA and RNA had in protein synthesis
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They found some RNA codons serve as “punctuation marks” in the chain to signal the start/stop of amino acids
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Poly-U experiment, described above, gave them the key to unlocking the genetic code with the discovery of phenylalanine (UUU)
 * They helped open the doors to further understand genetic diseases
 * With what Marshall Nirenberg discovered about translation, we now know that the addition or deletion of a single base can lead to a massive mutation

__Animations and Visuals:__

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; white-space: pre-wrap;">[] <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; white-space: pre-wrap;">[] <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; white-space: pre-wrap;">[]

__<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bibliography __

<span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; text-align: left;"> "Deciphering the Genetic Code: M. Nirenberg." //Office of History, National Institutes of Health//. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2011. <http://history.nih.gov/exhibits/nirenberg/>.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 11pt;">"Marshall W. Nirenberg - Biography." //Nobelprize.org// <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal;">. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2011. <[]>.

<span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; text-align: left;"> "Marshall Warren Nirenberg :: DNA from the Beginning." //DNA from the Beginning - An animated primer of the 75 experiments that made modern genetics.//. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2011. <http://www.dnaftb.org/22/bio.

<span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; text-align: left;"> NIH–, now an employee of. "Nirenberg: History Section: Poly-U." //Office of History, National Institutes of Health//. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2011. <http://history.nih.gov/exhibits/nirenberg/hs4_polyu.htm>.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 11pt;">"Nobel Laureate Marshall Nirenberg Dies at 82." //National Library of Medicine - National Institutes of Health// <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal;">. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2011. <[]

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Sydney. " Marshall Nirenberg: Nobel prize-winning biochemist | Times Online Obituary ." //The Times | UK News, World News and Opinion//. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2011. <http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article7015496.ece>.

<span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; text-align: left;"> WADE, NICHOLAS. "Marshall Nirenberg, Biologist Who Untangled Genetic Code, Dies at 82 - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com." //The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia//. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2011. <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/21/us/21nirenberg.html>.