Carl Woese

Carl Richard Woese (Syracuse, New York, United States, July 15, 1928 - Urbana, Illinois, United States, December 30, 2012) was an American microbiologist who created the new Molecular taxonomy based on the comparison between species of the so-called 16s and 18s ribosomal RNA sequence shared by all living beings on the planet and which has barely changed since the appearance on Earth of the first forms of microbiological life. Phylogenetic analyzes of it in 1977 led to the discovery of a new domain, Archaea.

Acceptance of the validity of archaea, which are prokaryotes but not bacteria, was a slow process. Relevant figures such as Salvador Luria and Ernst Mayr did not agree with this division of prokaryotes, although their criticisms were not limited to the scientific field. It wasn't until the mid-1980s that the growing amount of data led the scientific community to accept the new domain.

Woese entered the National Academy of Sciences in 1988, was awarded the Leeuwenhoek Medal in 1992, the National Medal of Science in 2000, and was awarded the Crafoord Prize by the Swedish Academy of Sciences in 2003.

He passed away on December 30, 2012 in Urbana, United States, at the age of 84.

Some posts

Books

• Woese, Carl (1967). The Genetic Code: the Molecular basis for Genetic Expression. New York: Harper & Row.

Articles

• Woese, Carl R.; George E. Fox (1977). «Phylogenetic structure of the prokaryotic domain: the primary kingdoms.». Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 7 (11): 5088-5090. Bibcode:1977PNAS...74.5088W. ISSN 0027-8424. doi:10.1073/pnas.74.11.5088. The reference uses the obsolete parameter |coautores= (help)
• Woese, Carl R. (1 June 1987). "Bacterial evolution." Microbiological Reviews 51 (2): 221-271.
• Woese, C R; O Kandler, M L Wheelis (1990). «Towards a natural system of organisms: proposal for the domains Archaea, Bacteria, and Eucarya.» Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 87 (12): 4576-4579. Bibcode:1990PNAS...87.4576W. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 54159. PMID 2112744. doi:10.1073/pnas.87.12.4576. The reference uses the obsolete parameter |coautores= (help)
• Woese, Carl R. (2006). «How We Do, Don’t and Should Look at Bacteria and Bacteriology». The Prokaryotes. pp. 3-23. Consultation on 21 April 2010.
• Woese, Carl Richard; Nigel Goldenfeld (2009). «How the Microbial World Saved Evolution from the Scylla of Molecular Biology and the Charybdis of the Modern Synthesis». Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews 73 (1): 14-21. doi:10.1128/MMBR.00002-09. Consultation on 27 December 2011.