Marshall W. Nirenberg (1927-2010)

Awarded the Prize “for the interpretation of the genetic code its function in protein synthesis.”

American biochemist. Nirenberg was born on April 10, 1927 in New York. In 1948 he received a B.Sc. degree, in 1952, a M.Sc. degree in Zoology from the University of Florida. In 1957 he received the Ph.D. degree from the Department of Biological Chemistry of the University of Michigan. In 1960 he held a Public Health Service Fellowship, became a research biochemist in the Section of Metabolic Enzymes at the National Institutes of Health, where in 1962 he became head of the Section of Biochemical Genetics. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts Sciences the National Academy of Sciences. Nirenberg died on January 15, 2010 in New York.