How the first recombinant DNA was created, Paul Berg
Interviewee: Paul Berg.
Paul Berg speaks about his student Janet Mertz's experiment to make the first recombinant DNA molecule.
(DNAi Location: Manipulation > Techniques > cutting & pasting > Interviews > First recombinant DNA)
The first recombinant DNA made by using enzyme-created sticky ends, cohesion ends, cohesive ends, was actually done by my student, Janet Mertz. She took two different DNAs, each of them had distinguishable properties, mixed them or, or cut them with the enzyme, mixed them, added an enzyme that could join ends to ends, and then showed she had created a molecule that now shared the properties of the two starting materials.
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Paul Berg's student, Janet Mertz, planned an experiment that would recombine DNA from a monkey virus with DNA from a bacterium that lives in the human gut. Berg describes colleague Bob Pollack's outrage at this.