In science, evidence is necessary to prove or disprove a hypothesis. Evidence suggests DNA is the molecule of heredity. list the scientists and the work they did to convince science and society that DNA is indeed the molecule of heredity. Next, list the evidence that would convince you that DNA is the molecule of heredity. Finally, reflect on why learning about the history and science of DNA is important in learning that DNA is the molecule of heredity.© BrainMass Inc. brainmass.com March 21, 2019, 3:02 pm ad1c9bdddf
Key scientists: Gregor Mendel, Frederick Griffith, Alfred D. Hershey and Martha Chase, Erwin Chargaff, Francis Crick, James Watson, Rosalind Franklin, and Maurice Wilkens, Matthew Meselson and Franklin W. Stahl
The studies of Gregor Mendel first showed that traits can be inherited from one generation to the next in peas. This gave birth to modern concepts of genetics and heredity. Later, Frederick Griffith discovered that one strain of bacteria can induce another strain to become pathogenic, a phenomenon he called transforming factor. At this time, scientists still were not certain about the agent that leads to the inheritance of certain traits and debated whether it was protein or DNA. In 1944, Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod, and Maclyn McCarty revisited Griffith's experiment and concluded the transforming factor was DNA. Their evidence was strong but not totally conclusive. The breakthrough in the quest to determine the hereditary material came from the work of Max Delbruck and Salvador Luria in the 1940s when they discovered that phages have DNA and protein, making them ideal to resolve the nature of the hereditary material.
In 1952, Alfred D. Hershey and Martha Chase conducted a series of experiments to determine whether protein or DNA was the hereditary material. By labeling the DNA and protein with different (and mutually exclusive) ...