Fred Sanger, Double Nobel Laureate: a Biography, by George G

Downloaded from rnajournal.cshlp.org on September 27, 2021 - Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press

BOOK REVIEW

Fred Sanger, Double Nobel Laureate: A Biography, by George G. Brownlee. 2014. Cambridge University Press.

George Brownlee, the author of this book, joined Fred he did not try to invent everything, but used what was avail- Sanger as a research student in 1963 in the then new MRC able in novel ways. Thus his work on insulin depended on the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. Fred had de- invention of paper chromatography by Martin and Synge, cided to start work on sequencing nucleic acids and Brownlee and the dideoxy method could not have been implemented was asked to try to purify phenylalanine transfer RNA. The without the powerful technique of acrylamide gel electropho- transfer RNAs were chosen because they were small mole- resis. Although his proof that proteins had a defined chemical cules and could be purified from natural sources. Although structure was one of the cornerstones for what became mo- he failed in this task, Brownlee continued working on se- lecular biology, Fred did not take the step himself; the revo- quencing methods using the 5S RNA of E. coli, which could lution was created by Watson and Crick in 1953 with the be labeled with radioactive phosphate and the relatively small discovery of the double-helical structure of DNA, with the amounts easily purified. In his previous work, Fred had tried complementary pairing of the bases. to develop radioactive methods for sequencing proteins The intellectual drive for the creation of molecular biology because these methods reduced the amount of pure material did not come from biochemistry but from genetics. It led to required for the task. He knew that only a few proteins the concept of biological information encoded in the sequence were available in the gram quantities required for the meth- of bases in DNA and its translation through a complementary ods he developed with insulin. Furthermore, the protein sequence of mRNA into the sequence of amino acids in pro- could be labeled with radioactive tags, which allowed limited teins following the genetic code. By 1962, when Fred joined radioactive sequencing of peptides produced by enzymatic the new Laboratory of Molecular Biology, most of the basic fragmentation. problems set by the new science had been solved, and it was A good deal of this biography is based on almost verbatim therefore natural for him to choose nucleic acids for his next interviews of Fred Sanger which George Brownlee made in work. The Laboratory of Molecular Biology had a unique cul- 1992, about a decade after Fred had retired. The interviews ture, and it was called a Laboratory rather than a Unit or an cover his early life, his work on insulin in the Biochemistry Institute because it was a place where everybody worked at Department for which he won his first Nobel Prize (1958, thebench; even Francis Crick put on awhite coatwhen he tried Chemistry, for his work on the structure of proteins, especial- topurify transferRNA and when heworked on frameshift mu- ly insulin), and his work in the MRC Laboratory of Molecular tants. Because it derived from the Perutz and Kendrew group Biology on sequencing RNA and DNA for which he was in the Cavendish Laboratory with a long tradition of develop- awarded his second Nobel Prize (1980, Chemistry, jointly ing the methods for protein crystallography, it had a culture with Paul Berg and Walter Gilbert, for contributions to the that valued and appreciated new techniques. Fred fit this cul- determination of sequences in DNA). The book also has ture well and he found many other scientists who very quickly five commentaries by other scientists and an introduction recognized and appreciated what he was doing and applied his by Ed Southern; all emphasize how Fred Sanger revolution- methods to solve important biological problems. In these days ized the whole field of biological research by his inventions of heavily managed scientific research, it is hard for the bu- and discoveries. As Paul Nurse states, “Fred is one of those reaucrats of science to understand self-disciplined freedom few individuals of whom it can be said that they changed in scientific research and the great benefits it can bring not the world for ever.” only to science but to all humanity. Fred Sanger was a unique scientist who worked at the Sydney Brenner, Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, bench right up to the end. However, like all good inventors, Singapore 138673; e-mail: [email protected]

© 2016 Brenner This article is distributed exclusively by the RNA Society for the first 12 months after the full-issue publication date (see http:// rnajournal.cshlp.org/site/misc/terms.xhtml). After 12 months, it is available Article published online ahead of print. Article and publication date are at under a Creative Commons License (Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 Inter- http://www.rnajournal.org/cgi/doi/10.1261/rna.055590.115. national), as described at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

RNA 22:1–1; Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press for the RNA Society 1 Downloaded from rnajournal.cshlp.org on September 27, 2021 - Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press

Fred Sanger, Double Nobel Laureate: A Biography, by George G. Brownlee. 2014. Cambridge University Press

Sydney Brenner

RNA published online January 11, 2016

Creative This article is distributed exclusively by the RNA Society for the first 12 months after the Commons full-issue publication date (see http://rnajournal.cshlp.org/site/misc/terms.xhtml). After 12 License months, it is available under a Creative Commons License (Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International), as described at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. Email Alerting Receive free email alerts when new articles cite this article - sign up in the box at the Service top right corner of the article or click here.

To subscribe to RNA go to: http://rnajournal.cshlp.org/subscriptions