[2015] student strsip66 (Police Science): Glog from Hicksville US Feb 01 2016

Martha Chase and Alfred Hershey worked on their research in the early 50s between the years of 1952 and 1953 at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

Alfred Hershey graduated from Michigan State University where he received a bachelor of science and a PhD in the area of bacteriology. Alfred Hersey's work on viruses and their replication processes awarded him the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medecine. Martha Chase earned her bachelor's degree at the College of Wooster and her PhD at the University of Southern California.

Academic Background of Scientists

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Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase conducted an experiment to determine the composition of genes and genetic material that is transferred to provide necessary infromation during processes like replication. These scientists used bacteriophage (a virus) to determine what is the information transfered as. Bacteriophage inject their genetic information into a host bacterium and inside the bacterium new phages are created. Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase created two groups in the experiment: a group of phages that had protein coats marked with radioactive sulfur (since sulfur is not present in DNA but in protein) and a group of phages that had their DNA marked with radioactive phosphorus (since phosphorus existed in DNA and not proteins). These two groups were injected into E. Coli Bacteria and after the replication of phages occured, they analyzed the contents of the new phages. This experiment proved that DNA (the genetic material) was being injected into the bacteria since the replicated phages in the first group did not contain radioactive sulfur but the replicated phages in the second group contained radioactive phosphorus.

This study by Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase was very useful and beneficial for the discovery of the structure of DNA by James Watson and Francis Crick because it provided the significance of DNA and that it contains the formulas for life and all metabolic processes. Without this study, Watson and Crick wouldn't even know that DNA was the complex genetic material in living things and therefore they would not automatically know that DNA was the structure that provided information for the synthesis of proteins and many other useful components of life.

Time Frame of Research

Summary of Research

Data from Hershey-Chase Experiment

Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase

Significance to the discovery of DNA structure

By Michal LewkowiczDoshi STEM InstitueMs. D'Alessio