What Are the Properties of Genetic RNA?: A Note for the RNA Tie Club
Description:
In this note, which remained in manuscript form and was never circulated, Crick and Brenner came to terms with the results of the famous "PaJaMo" experiment of Arthur Pardee, Francois Jacob, and Jacques Monod, which implied that ribosomal RNA could not be, as had long been assumed, the messenger that carried genetic information from DNA in the cell nucleus to the ribosome, the site of protein synthesis in the cytoplasm of the cell. Instead, Crick and Brenner here announced a new "messenger hypothesis," first developed at a famous meeting in Cambridge with Francois Jacob and others on Good Friday, 1960. According to the messenger hypothesis, genetic instructions were relayed by a distinct form of messenger RNA, which had in fact been unwittingly observed by researchers before, and which was soon to be purposefully isolated in the laboratory. This profound insight cleared the way for the elucidation of the genetic code.
Item is handwritten.
Number of Image Pages:
20 (3,618,789 Bytes)
Date:
1960-05 (May 1960)
Creator:
Brenner, Sydney
Crick, Francis
Source:
Original Repository: Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine. Francis Harry Compton Crick Papers
