Nirenberg and Leder Experiment - Reception and Legacy

Reception and Legacy

By the Cold Spring Harbor Symposium of 1966, between Nirenberg and Khorana the genetic code was almost completely decoded. Nirenberg was awarded the 1968 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He shared the award with Har Gobind Khorana of the University of Wisconsin and Robert W. Holley of the Salk Institute. Working independently, Khorana had mastered the synthesis of nucleic acids, and Holley had discovered the exact chemical structure of transfer-RNA.

The New York Times reported on Leder and Nirenberg's discovery by explaining that "the science of biology has reached a new frontier," leading to "a revolution far greater in its potential significance than the atomic or hydrogen bomb." Most of the Scientific community saw these experiments as highly important and beneficial. However, there were some who were concerned with the new era of Molecular Genetics. For example, Arne Wilhelm Kaurin Tiselius, the 1948 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, asserted that knowledge of the genetic code could "lead to methods of tampering with life, of creating new diseases, of controlling minds, of influencing heredity, even perhaps in certain desired directions."