Nathans, Daniel (1928-1999), an American microbiologist, was awarded the 1978 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine for discoveries in molecular genetics. He shared it with Hamilton Smith of the United States and Werner Arber of Switzerland. Nathans used an enzyme taken from the bacterium Haemophilus influenzae to break up deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) of SV40, a virus found in monkeys. SV40 is the simplest of the viruses known to cause cancerous tumors. In this way, he examined the structure of the virus’s DNA. This experiment led the way to further research into the molecular structure of cancer cells.
Nathans was born in Wilmington, Delaware. In 1950, he graduated with a degree in chemistry from the University of Delaware and, in 1954, he received an M.D. from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. From 1954 to 1959, he worked at the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City. In 1962, he joined the faculty of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. In 1972, he became director of the Department of Microbiology there and, in 1982, professor of molecular biology and genetics.
