Who Is Frederick Sanger's Contribution To Biochemistry

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Frederick Sanger, was a British biochemist, born in Rendcombe, England, on August 13, 1918. His contributions to science and the world of biochemistry were groundbreaking and revolutionary, and set the foundation for modern biology. Because of this he was given many prestigious awards, including two nobel prizes (one of only four to achieve such a milestone). But before doing all this, he was just the son of a medical practitioner, Frederick Sanger Sr., M.D., and Cicely Sanger. His family was relatively wealthy and practiced a Quaker faith, which made him a peaceful, imaginative, modest man. He expressed his peaceful nature throughout his life, by strongly objecting World War II, and having a peaceful personality in general. Being born to a …show more content…

His two major breakthroughs paved the way for the world of science to come. His first breakthrough was protein sequencing. Before Sanger’s experiments, it was known that proteins had different physical properties, biological functions, and amino acid compositions, and most of it controlled by genes. However, it was widely questioned how large molecules, such as proteins could be created, and many believed that proteins were formed randomly. That was the common belief, which was taken seriously until Sanger forever changed this belief. Through his experiments Sanger proved that proteins were made up of a sequence of amino acids. To do this, he developed various methods of sequencing proteins, but the method that was successful, was the one using what is a chemical, now called “Sanger’s Reagent.” In this case, Sanger used this chemical, and Bovine Insulin, to sequence the first protein, a discovery for which diabetics are forever grateful. His discovery was groundbreaking and founded the modern study of enzymology, and ultimately earned him the nobel prize in 1958. However, Sanger did not stop here, later in 1962, he joined the Medical Research Council’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology (MRC-LMB). Although he was the head of protein chemistry, he joined the MRC-LMB, shifting his focus from protein chemistry to nucleic acids and began developing new methods of sequencing RNA. Later, these methods translated into DNA, where he and his team used various methods to approach DNA sequencing. The first method they used was called the “plus and minus” method, followed by a new method developed by Sanger and his team. This new method was the process of using chain-terminating inhibitors of DNA polymerase, called dideoxynucleotides, to sequence DNA. Ultimately, this newly developed process was called “Sanger sequencing.” Using this method, Sanger and his team

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