Researched
DNA is the hereditary molecule
Experiments with bacteria and viruses showed that DNA, not protein, carries genetic information.
Open in the interactive tree →In 1944 Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod and Maclyn McCarty showed that purified DNA could turn harmless bacteria into a dangerous strain; Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase confirmed it with viruses in 1952. Most biologists had expected proteins to be the carrier. This pointed the race straight at the structure of DNA.
Prerequisites
- Viruses discovered1892-1898Hershey and Chase used a bacterial virus to show that DNA carries heredity
- Chromosome theory of heredity1915