Martha Cowles Chase was born November 20, 1927 in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.
Graduated from Wooster, Ohio in 1950 and earned her bachelor's degree. In 1952, Martha used a kitchen blender to help prove DNA is the molecule that carries genetic information. This provided a foundation of molecular biology and inspired Dr. Watson to develop the double helix bond model of DNA.
In 1953, Martha left college to work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. In 1964, she went back to college at Southern California University and graduated with a PhD.
Ms. Chase is most commonly known for her contribution in The Hershey & Chase Experiment. A major contribution from Martha is her thought that DNA rather than protein carried genetic …show more content…
They used radioactive tracers to mark DNA core and the protein coat of a bacterial virus. When the placed material into the blender, they recorded that the blender detached DNA and protein. The DNA entered the bacteria at the time of the infection and that replicated the virus. This proved Martha and Alfred’s theory was correct.
Martha Chase won a Nobel Prize in Physiology and medicine in 1969. She spent decades suffering from dementia until August 8, 2003 Martha Chase died. In 2003, 1,600 90+ year old people enrolled in an experiment to see how likely it was to get dementia. Over 40% of the elders suffered from it. These people who had the APOE2 gene were less likely to suffer from Alzheimer’s dementia, but were more likely to suffer from Alzheimer’s neuropathology.
As mentioned earlier, Martha was hired by Dr. Alfred Hershey. Alfred was born in Owosso Michigan in 1908. In 1946, he discovered that phage can recombine when it is coinfected into a bacterial host. He went to college at Washington University school of Medicine till 1950. After college, he accepted a position from the Carnegie Institution of Washington's Department of Genetics at Cold Spring Harbor a became a Phage