science · 30 November 2007 · 17 years ago
death
Died 30 Nov 2007 at age 86 (born 15 Oct 1921).
American molecular biologist who developed (1955) a method for determining the detailed structure of viral genes. He coined the term cistron (1957) to denote functional subunits of genes. He also did much to elucidate the nature of genetic anomalies, called nonsense mutations, in terms of the nucleotide sequence of DNA, deoxyribonucleic acid. In the 1 Nov 1997 issue of Current Biology, Benzer and Kyung-Tai Min described two mutant types of fruitfly with signs of brain degeneration that might be useful for studying Creutzfeld-Jacob (CJ) disease or other human brain degenerative disorders. The “spongecake” mutant has holes that appear in the brain as degeneration sets in, holes similar to spongiform encephalopathies, like CJ or mad cow disease.
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