Transfer RNA - History

History

The existence of tRNA was first hypothesized by Francis Crick, based on the assumption that there must exist an adapter molecule capable of mediating the translation of the RNA alphabet into the protein alphabet. Significant research on structure was conducted in the early 1960s by Alex Rich and Don Caspar, two researchers in Boston, the Jacques Fresco group in Princeton University and a United Kingdom group at King's College London. In 1965, Robert W. Holley of Cornell University reported the primary structure and suggested three secondary structures. The cloverleaf structure was ascertained by several other studies in the following years and was finally confirmed using X-ray crystallography studies in 1974. Two independent groups, Kim Sung-Hou working under Alexander Rich and a British group headed by Aaron Klug, published the same crystallography findings within a year.

Read more about this topic:  Transfer RNA

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    “A man will not need to study history to find out what is best for his own culture.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “The reverence for the Scriptures is an element of civilization, for thus has the history of the world been preserved, and is preserved.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    “This is the greatest week in the history of the world since the Creation, because as a result of what happened in this week, the world is bigger, infinitely.”
    —Richard M. Nixon (1913–1995)