Paul Zamecnik
Paul Charles Zamecnik ( born November 22, 1912 in Cleveland, Ohio, † October 27, 2009 in Boston, Massachusetts) was an American biochemist and molecular biologist.
Life and work
Zamecnik earned in 1933 at Dartmouth College a BA in chemistry and zoology and 1936 at Harvard Medical School, an MD as graduation from medical school. As a medical assistant, he worked in Pasadena, Cleveland and Boston. As a postdoctoral fellow Zamecnik worked at the Carlsberg Research Center in Copenhagen and at the Rockefeller Institute in New York City before he took over from 1942 at Harvard Medical School teaching assignments.
Paul Zamecnik developed in 1953 a cell-free system for protein synthesis, the metabolic pathways could be explored with 14C- labeled amino acids. Means the road to the discovery became clear that proteins are synthesized on the basis of a blueprint in the DNA. Zamecnik could also show that the protein synthesis of adenosine triphosphate (ATP ) is consumed and no reverse reaction to proteolysis. Between 1956 and 1979, Zamecnik was a professor at Harvard Medical School and was a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. 1956, Mahlon Hoagland identified with Zamecnik and Mary Stephenson first tRNA ( transfer RNA ) that control the selection of the next correct amino acid based on the genetic code. He also was able to show that the process of protein synthesis occurs at the ribosomes.
He developed the idea of the activity of certain genes by antisense oligonucleotides - for example, tumors or viruses - to block and thus the synthesis of pathogenic proteins, 1978, he published the method. In 1979, Zamecnik - with reaching the age limit at Harvard University - at the Worcester Foundation for Biomedical Research, where successful applications of antisense method were implemented, including to human immunodeficiency virus ( HIV). In 1990, Zamecnik the biotechnology company hybridon. 1997 Worchester Foundation merged with the University of Massachusetts Medical School and Zamecnik's laboratory moved to the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, where he was scientifically active until a few weeks before his death.
Zamecnik was married and had three children.