Erwin Chargaff

Erwin Chargaff (August 11, 1905 – June 20, 2002) was a Jewish Austrian chemist who immigrated to the United States during the Nazi annexation of his country. After careful experiments, Chargaff discovered two rules that aided in the discovery of the DNA double helix.

Biography

Erwin Chargaff was born on August 11, 1905 in Czernowitz, Bukowina, then the Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Ukraine). He studies chemistry in Vienna, then spends two years at Yale University. Since 1930 he works at the University of Berlin until he moves to the Pasteur Institute in Paris in 1933.

Erwin Chargaff analyzed the nitrogenous bases of DNA in different forms of life, concluding that the amount of purines were always in equal proportions to those of pyrimidines (contrary to what was proposed by Phoebus Levene), the proportion was equal in all cells of individuals of a given species, but it varied from species to species.

In 1984 he was awarded the Johann-Heinrich-Merck-Preis.

Columbia University

In 1935 he emigrated to New York. There, Chargaff becomes a professor at Columbia University.