Reply to MF McCarty

OBLITUARIES Maclyn McCarty ( 1911 - 2005 )

“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants” (letter of Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke). This wellknown sentence of Newton finds its correct meaning in biology through the work of Oswald Avery (1877-1955), Colin MacLeod (1909-1972), and Maclyn McCarty (1911-2005) that was published in 1944 in The Journal of Experimental Medicine, which showed that DNA carried genetic inf...

The career of Maclyn McCarty

On January 2, 2005, the scientific community lost a valued colleague and friend. Maclyn McCarty, or "Mac," as he was better known, was perhaps most recognized for his part in the discovery of DNA as the carrier of genetic information. But McCarty's scientific career was long and fruitful, and his contributions to science were vast. This retrospective offers a look at some of Mac's other notable...

Maclyn McCarty (1911–2005)

The editorial board lost a real soul mate when Maclyn McCarty passed away on January 2nd at age 93. While attending the theater with friends, one of the many activities that he enjoyed, he collapsed. “Dr. Mac” was revered worldwide for his remarkable experiments that led to the identification of DNA as the genetic material. This totally unanticipated discovery, and the revolutionary 1944 paper ...

A Path to Discovery: The Career of Maclyn McCarty

October 2005 | Volume 3 | Issue 10 | e341 Maclyn McCarty, who devoted his life as a physician-scientist to studying infectious disease organisms, was best known for his part in the monumental discovery that DNA, rather than protein, constituted the chemical nature of a gene. Uncovering the molecular secret of the gene in question—that for the capsular polysaccharide of pneumococcal bacteria—led...

The Authors’ Reply