'Daniel Nathans' (
October 30,
1928 –
November 16,
1999) was an American
microbiologist.
He was born in
Wilmington,
Delaware, the last of nine children born to Russian Jewish immigrant parents. During the
Great Depression his father lost his small business and was unemployed for a long period of time. Nathans went to public schools and then to the
University of Delaware, where he studied chemistry, philosophy, and literature. He received his M.D. degree from
Washington University in
St. Louis, Missouri in 1954. Nathans served as President of
Johns Hopkins University in
Baltimore,
Maryland from 1995 to 1996.
Along with
Werner Arber and
Hamilton Smith, Nathans received the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in
1978 for the discovery of
restriction enzymes.He was also awarded with
National Medal of Science in
1993.
In 1999,
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine announced the creation of the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine that was named in his honor posthumously along with
Victor McKusick [1]. In 2005, the School of Medicine named one of its four colleges after Dr. Nathans.
External link
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Autobiography