Предтеча молекулярної ери у біології. До 110 річниці із дня народження Ервіна Чаргаффа

Abstract

The article represents a short biography of Erwin Chargaff, one of the most famous figures in the history of molecular biology and genetics. Chargaff was born in Chernivtsi (Austria-Hungary, now Ukraine). After graduating from the University of Vienna, Chargaff worked in Berlin and Paris, where he studied bacterial lipids. In year 1935, Chargaff emigrated to the USA and got a job at the Columbia University, where he initially invastigated the role of phospholipids in blood clotting. After demonstration of the genetic role of DNA by Avery in 1944, Chargaff began to study the structure of nucleic acids and established two rules, which were later named after him. The first Chargaff’s rule states that in natural DNA the number of adenine residues is equal to the number of thymine residues and the number of guanine residues is equal to the number of cytosine ones. These results provided a significant support to Watson and Crick in constructing their double helical DNA model. The main events Chargaff’s personal life of are also briefly described in the present article.