Paul Naim Berg (born to a Jewish family on June 30, 1926 in Brooklyn, New York, U.S.) is an American biochemist and professor emeritus at Stanford University. He graduated from Abraham Lincoln High School in 1943, received his B.S. in biochemistry from Penn State University in 1948 and Ph.D. in biochemistry from Case Western Reserve University in 1952. In 1980 he shared half of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry with the team of Walter Gilbert and Fre...
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Paul Naim Berg (born to a Jewish family on June 30, 1926 in Brooklyn, New York, U.S.) is an American biochemist and professor emeritus at Stanford University. He graduated from Abraham Lincoln High School in 1943, received his B.S. in biochemistry from Penn State University in 1948 and Ph.D. in biochemistry from Case Western Reserve University in 1952. In 1980 he shared half of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry with the team of Walter Gilbert and Frederick Sanger. All three were recognized for their important contributions to basic research in nucleic acids. His studies as a postgraduate involved the use of radioisotope tracers in intermediary metabolism. This resulted in the understanding of how foodstuffs are converted to cellular materials, through the use of isotopic carbons or heavy nitrogen atoms. Paul Berg's doctorate paper is now known as the conversion of formic acid, formaldehyde and methanol to fully reduced states of methyl groups in methionine. He was also one of the first to...
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