Daniel Nathans

Daniel Nathans (October 30, 1928 – November 16, 1999) was an American microbiologist. He is perhaps best known for being a recipient of the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, making him the only Nobel laureate born in Delaware.

Life and career

Nathans was born in Wilmington, Delaware, the last of nine children born to Russian Jewish immigrant parents, Sarah (Levitan) and Samuel Nathans. During the Great Depression his father lost his small business and was unemployed for a long period of time. Nathans went to public schools and then to the University of Delaware, where he studied chemistry, philosophy, and literature. He received a BS in Chemistry from the University of Delaware in 1950. He received his M.D. degree from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri in 1954. After getting an M. D. degree in 1954, Nathan went to the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York(The university hospital of Columbia University) for an internship in medicine with Robert Loeb, a masterful clinician and medical scientist. Nathans served as President of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland from 1995 to 1996.

Along with Werner Arber and Hamilton Smith, Nathans received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1978 for the discovery of restriction enzymes.^[1] He was also awarded with National Medal of Science in 1993.

In 1999, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine announced the creation of the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine that was named in his honor posthumously along with Victor McKusick.^[2] In 2005, the School of Medicine named one of its four colleges after Nathans.

See also

• List of Jewish Nobel laureates

References

• Brownlee, Christen; Nathans, D (April 2005). "Danna and Nathans: Restriction enzymes and the boon to modern molecular biology". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 102 (17): 5909. doi:10.1073/pnas.0502760102. 
• Dimaio, D (2001). "Daniel Nathans: October 30, 1928-November 16, 1999". Biographical memoirs. National Academy of Sciences (U.S.) 79: 262–79. PMID 11762397. 
• Raju, T N (October 1999). "The Nobel chronicles. 1978: Werner Arber (b 1929); Hamilton O Smith (b 1931); Daniel Nathans (b 1928)". Lancet 354 (9189): 1567. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(05)76606-X. PMID 10551539. 
• Shampo, M A; Kyle R A (April 1996). "Daniel Nathans--geneticist and microbiologist wins Nobel prize". Mayo Clin. Proc. 71 (4): 360. doi:10.4065/71.4.360. PMID 8637258. 
• Kroon, A M (February 1979). "[The Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology in 1978 (Werner Arber, Daniel Nathans, Hamilton Smith)]". Nederlands tijdschrift voor geneeskunde 123 (5): 153–6. PMID 368662. 
• Piekarowicz, A (1979). "[Werner Arber, Daniel Nathans and Hamilton Smith. Nobel prizes for the studies on DNA restriction enzymes]". Postepy Biochem. 25 (2): 251–3. PMID 388391. 
• Desiderio, S; Boyer S (November 1978). "Arber, Smith and Nathans: Nobel Laureates in medicine and physiology, 1978". The Johns Hopkins Medical Journal 143 (5): ix–x. PMID 364154. 

External links

• Nobel Autobiography
• The Daniel Nathans Papers - Profiles in Science, National Library of Medicine
• Daniel Nathans — Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences