Erwin Chargaff | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | (1905-08-11)11 August 1905 Czernowitz, Duchy of Bukovina, Austria-Hungary |
| Died | 20 June 2002(2002-06-20) (aged 96) New York City, United States |
| Education | Maximiliansgymnasium,Vienna College of Technology (1924–1928) |
| Known for | Chargaff's rules |
| Spouse | |
| Children | Thomas Chargaff |
| Awards | Pasteur Medal (1949),National Medal of Science (1974) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Biochemistry |
| Institutions | Yale University (1925–1930),University of Berlin (1930–1933),Pasteur Institute (1933–1934),Columbia University (1935–1974),Roosevelt Hospital (1974–1992) |
| Doctoral advisor | Fritz Feigl |
| Doctoral students | Seymour S. Cohen,Boris Magasanik |
| Signature | |
 | |
Erwin Chargaff (11 August 1905 – 20 June 2002) was an Austro-Hungarian-born Americanbiochemist, writer, and professor of biochemistry atColumbia University medical school.[1] A Bucovinian Jew who immigrated to the United States during theNazi regime, he penned a well-reviewed[2][3] autobiography,Heraclitean Fire: Sketches from a Life Before Nature.[4] Through careful experimentation, Chargaff discovered two rules, calledChargaff's rules, which helped lead to the discovery of thedouble helix structure ofDNA.
Chargaff was born on 11 August 1905 to aJewish family inCzernowitz,Duchy of Bukovina,Austria-Hungary, which is nowChernivtsi, Ukraine.[5]
At the outbreak of World War I, his family moved to Vienna, where he attended the Maximiliansgymnasium (now theGymnasium Wasagasse). He then went on to theVienna College of Technology (Technische Hochschule Wien) where he met his future wife Vera Broido.
From 1924 to 1928, Chargaff studiedchemistry in Vienna, and earned adoctorate working under the direction ofFritz Feigl.[6][7]
He married Vera Broido in 1928. Chargaff had one son, Thomas Chargaff.
From 1925 to 1930, Chargaff served as theMilton CampbellResearch fellow inorganic chemistry atYale University, but he did not likeNew Haven, Connecticut. Chargaff returned to Europe, where he lived from 1930 to 1934, serving first as the assistant in charge of chemistry for the department ofbacteriology andpublic health at theUniversity of Berlin (1930–1933) and then, being forced to resign his position in Germany as a result of the Nazi policies against Jews, as a research associate at thePasteur Institute inParis (1933–1934).
Chargaff immigrated toManhattan,New York City in 1935,[8] taking a position as a research associate in the department of biochemistry atColumbia University, where he spent most of his professional career. Chargaff became anassistant professor in 1938 and a professor in 1952. After serving as department chair from 1970 to 1974, Chargaff retired as professoremeritus. After his retirement as professor emeritus, Chargaff moved his lab toRoosevelt Hospital, where he continued to work until his retirement in 1992.[citation needed]
He became an American citizen in 1940.
During his time at Columbia, Chargaff published numerous scientific papers, dealing primarily with the study ofnucleic acids such asDNA usingchromatographic techniques. He became interested inDNA in 1944 afterOswald Averyidentified the molecule as the basis ofheredity.[9][7][10]Cohen says that "Almost alone among the scientists of this time, Chargaff accepted the unusual Avery paper and concluded that genetic differences among DNAs must be reflected in chemical differences among these substances. He was actually the first biochemist to reorganize his laboratory to test this hypothesis, which he went on to prove by 1949."[8] Chargaff said of the Avery discovery: "I saw before me (in 1944), in dark contours, the beginning of a grammar of biology",[7] and in 1950 he published a paper with the conclusion that the amounts ofadenine andthymine in DNA were roughly the same, as were the amounts ofcytosine andguanine.[11] This later became known as the first ofChargaff's rules. Instrumental in his DNA discoveries were the innovation ofpaper chromatography,[12] and the commercially availableultraviolet spectrophotometer tool.[7]
Chargaff lectured about his results atCambridge University in 1952, withWatson andCrick in attendance.[13]
Key conclusions from Erwin Chargaff's work are now known asChargaff's rules. The first and best known achievement was to show that in naturalDNA the number ofguanine units equals the number ofcytosine units and the number ofadenine units equals the number ofthymine units. In human DNA, for example, the four bases are present in these percentages: A=30.9% and T=29.4%; G=19.9% and C=19.8%. This strongly hinted towards thebase pair makeup of the DNA, although Chargaff did not explicitly state this connection himself. For this research, Chargaff is credited with disproving thetetranucleotide hypothesis[14] (Phoebus Levene's widely accepted hypothesis that DNA was composed of a large number of repeats of GACT). Most researchers had previously assumed that deviations from equimolar base ratios (G = A = C = T) were due to experimental error, but Chargaff documented that the variation was real, with [C + G] typically being slightly less abundant. He did his experiments with the newly developedpaper chromatography andultraviolet spectrophotometer. Chargaff metFrancis Crick andJames D. Watson atCambridge in 1952, and, despite not getting along with them personally,[15] he explained his findings to them. Chargaff's research would later help the Watson and Crick laboratory team to deduce thedouble helical structure of DNA.
The second of Chargaff's rules is that the composition of DNA varies from one species to another, in particular in the relative amounts of A, G, T, and C bases. Such evidence of molecular diversity, which had been presumed absent from DNA, made DNA a more credible candidate for thegenetic material thanprotein.[16]
Beginning in the 1950s, Chargaff became increasingly outspoken about the failure of the field ofmolecular biology, claiming that molecular biology was "running riot and doing things that can never be justified".[17] He believed that human knowledge will always be limited in relation to the complexity of the natural world, and that it is simply dangerous when humans believe that the world is a machine, even assuming that humans can have full knowledge of its workings. He also believed that in a world that functions as a complex system of interdependency and interconnectedness,genetic engineering of life will inevitably haveunforeseen consequences.[1]
AfterFrancis Crick,James Watson andMaurice Wilkins received the 1962Nobel Prize for their work on discovering the double helix of DNA, Chargaff withdrew from his lab and wrote to scientists all over the world about his exclusion.[18]
Chargaff warned in his 1978 bookHeraclitean Fire of a "molecularAuschwitz" that "the technology ofgenetic engineering poses a greater threat to the world than the advent of nuclear technology. An irreversible attack on thebiosphere is something so unheard of, so unthinkable to previous generations, that I only wish that mine had not been guilty of it".[19][20][21]
Helping a few couples condemned to childlessness towards getting a child may strike the obstetrical cytologist as such a laudable step, but we can see the beginning of humanhusbandry, ofindustrial breeding factories... Who can deny the scientific interest attaching to the production ofchimaeras, to the study of human embryonic growth in an animal uterus? ... What I see coming is a gigantic slaughterhouse, a molecular Auschwitz, in which valuableenzymes,hormones and so on will be extracted instead of gold teeth.
— Erwin Chargaff,Heraclitean Fire
TheIVF technique earned his scathing disapprobation. In 1987, "Engineering a Molecular Nightmare" was published in the journalNature,[22] which was then sent byDavid Alton and his colleagues in theAll-Party Parliamentary Pro-Life Group (APPPLG) to everyWestminster MP in an effort to minimise the forthcoming harm caused by theHuman Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990.[19]
Chargaff wrote in 2002 that "There are two nuclei that man should never have touched: theatomic nucleus and thecell nucleus. The technology ofgenetic engineering poses a greater threat to the world than the advent ofnuclear technology."[23]
My life has been marked by two immense and fateful discoveries: the splitting of the atom, the recognition of the chemistry of heredity and its subsequent manipulation. It is the mistreatment of nucleus that, in both instances, lies at the basis: the nucleus of the atom, the nucleus of the cell. In both instances do I have the feeling that science has transgressed a barrier that should have remained inviolate. As happens often in science, the first discoveries were made by thoroughly admirable men, but the crowd that came right after had a moremephitic smell.
— Chargaff in Weintraub (2002)
Chargaff died later that year on 20 June 2002 inManhattan,New York City.[24]
Honors awarded to him include thePasteur Medal (1949);Carl Neuberg Medal (1958);[25]Charles Leopold Mayer Prize;[26] inauguralHeineken Prize (Amsterdam, 1964);[26]Gregor Mendel Medal (Halle, 1968);[25] and theNational Medal of Science (1974).[27]
Elected to theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences (1961), theNational Academy of Sciences (1965), and theAmerican Philosophical Society (1979)[28] and theGerman Academy of Sciences.[5]
Honorary Doctorate awarded byColumbia University in 1975.[28]
Erwin Chargaff, whose research into the chemical composition of DNA helped lay the groundwork for James Watson and Francis Crick's discovery of its double-helix structure — the pivotal finding of 20th-century biology — died on June 20 in a New York hospital. He was 96.
