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Martha Chase Wikipedia

Martha Cowles Chase (1927 – 2003) was a young laboratory assistant in the early 1950s when she participated in one of the most famous experiments in 20th century biology. Devised by American Phage|bacteriophage expert Alfred Hershey at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory New York, the Hershey-Chase experiment|famous experiment demonstrated the genome|genomic properties of DNA over proteins. By marking bacteriophages with Radionuclide|radioactive isotopes, Hershey and Chase were able to trace protein and DNA to determine which is the molecule of heredity.

Hershey and Chase announced their results in a 1952 paper. The experiment inspired American researcher James D. Watson, who along with England's Francis Crick figured out the structure of DNA at the Cavendish Laboratory of the University of Cambridge the following year.

Hershey shared the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Salvador Luria and Max Delbr??ck. Chase, however, did not reap such rewards for her role. A graduate of The College of Wooster in Ohio (she had grown up in Shaker Heights, Ohio), she continued working as a laboratory assistant, first at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and then at the University of Rochester before moving to Los Angeles, California|Los Angeles in the late 1950s. There she married and earned her Ph.D. in 1964 from the University of Southern California. A series of personal setbacks through the 1960s ended her career in science. She spent decades suffering from a form of dementia that robbed her of short-term memory. She died in 2003.

Her works include:

• Independent Functions of Viral Protein and Nucleic Acid in Growth of Bacteriophage, September 20, 1952

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Category:Molecular biologists|Chase, Martha
Category:American biologists|Chase, Martha
Category:Women scientists|Chase, Martha
Category:1927 births|Chase, Martha
Category:2003 deaths|Chase, Martha

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Last Modified:   2005-12-19