Biography Of Paul Berg, A: The Recombinant Dna Controversy Revisited

by Errol C Friedberg, Sydney Brenner (Foreword by)

Overview

With a Foreword by Sydney Brenner (Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine, 2002)This biography details the life of Paul Berg (Emeritus Professor at Stanford University), tracing Berg's life from birth, in 1926, to the present, with special emphasis on his enormous scientific contributions, including being the first to develop technology that led to gene cloning science. In 1980, Berg received a Nobel Prize in chemistry for this work.In addition to his contributions in the research laboratory, Berg orchestrated and oversaw a historic meeting at Asilomar, California that centered on a threatening controversy surrounding the perception by some of the harmful potential of recombinant DNA technology. This meeting did much to forestall this controversy and to put in place the regulation of recombinant DNA work, thus putting fears to rest.The recombinant DNA controversy was a historic outcome of the discovery of gene cloning. Notably, it represented a paramount example of scientific foresight and due diligence by the scientific community, rather than by regulatory entities in the United States and many other countries. The ultimate acceptance of gene/DNA cloning led to a new era of modern biology that thrives to the present.This book is aimed primarily at scientists and those in training. The book strives to simply provide information for the general reader, but is not specifically tailored for a general reading audience.While many books cover the recombinant DNA controversy, none have satisfactorily addressed this historic period and are often contradictory about the many who's, where's, and why's involved. Additionally, the great majority of these were written by non-scientists. This biography of Paul Berg provides access to numerous archived letters and documents at Stanford University not previously addressed, and to the chronology of events as recalled and documented by him, as well as other key personalities, many of whom were interviewed.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789814569040
Publisher:	World Scientific Publishing Company, Incorporated
Publication date:	07/29/2014
Pages:	444
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)

Table of Contents

About the Author v

Timeline xiii

Notable Honors and Awards xxi

Acknowledgements xxiii

Foreword xxv

Preface xxvii

Prologue xxxi

Part I 1

Chapter 1 Growing up in Brooklyn 3

Chapter 2 The Essential Paul Berg 17

Chapter 3 College-and World WarII 21

Chapter 4 Western Reserve University 33

Chapter 5 Copenhagen 55

Part II 63

Chapter 6 Washington University, St. Louis 65

Chapter 7 Discovering Transfer RNA 77

Chapter 8 Stanford University-and its Refurbished Department of Biochemistry 89

Chapter 9 Transcription and Translation: New Directions 105

Part III 111

Chapter 10 Making Recombinant DNA-The First Faltering Steps 113

Chapter 11 Making Recombinant DNA; A Major Breakthrough 127

Chapter 12 EcoRI Restriction Endonuclease-A Major Breakthrough 145

Chapter 13 "Coincidence is the Word We Use When We Can't See the Levers and Pulleys" 155

Chapter 14 Yet Another Stanford Contribution 175

Part IV 187

Chapter 15 An Historic Meeting in Hawaii 189

Chapter 16 The Recombinant DNA Controversy 203

Chapter 17 A Momentous Gordon Research Conference 219

Chapter 18 Making Recombinant Molecules with Frog DNA 229

Chapter 19 The Controversy Heats Up 239

Chapter 20 Asilomar II 255

Chapter 21 The Dissenters: A Different Point of View 275

Chapter 22 The Aftermath 287

Chapter 23 Legislative and Revisionist Challenges to Recombinant DNA 295

Chapter 24 AsilomarII-Lessons Learned 307

Part V 311

chapter 25 The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 313

Chapter 26 Commercializing the Technology 323

Chapter 27 Life Goes On 331

Chapter 28 The "Retirement" Years 345

Chapter 29 Public Policy Issues-and Other Interests 357

Chapter 30 Personal Challenges 375

References 381

Index 385