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Werner Arber

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Werner Arber
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(born June 3, 1929, Gränichen, Switz.) Swiss microbiologist. He has taught chiefly at the University of Basel. He shared a 1978 Nobel Prize with Daniel Nathans and Hamilton O. Smith for the discovery and use of restriction enzymes that break the giant molecules of DNA into pieces small enough to be separated for individual study but large enough to retain meaningful amounts of the genetic information of the original substance. He also observed that bacteriophages cause mutation in their bacterial hosts and undergo hereditary mutations themselves.

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Scientist: Werner Arber
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Swiss microbiologist (1929–)

Arber, who was born in Gränichen, Switzerland, graduated from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in 1953 and gained his PhD from the University of Geneva in 1958. He spent a year at the University of Southern California before returning to Geneva where he became professor of molecular genetics in 1965. In 1971 Arber moved to Basel to take the chair of molecular biology.

In the early 1950s Giuseppe Bertani reported a phenomenon he described as ‘host-controlled variation’ in which phage (the viruses that infect bacteria) successfully growing on one host found it difficult to establish themselves on a different bacterium. In 1962, he proposed that bacteria possess highly specific enzymes capable of destroying invading phage by cutting up their DNA. The existence of such ‘restriction enzymes’ as they came to be called was later established by Hamilton Smith.

It turned out that, as Arber had proposed, the enzymes attack the invading DNA at a specific site, always cutting them at exactly the same place. It was this property that endowed restriction enzymes with such interest for if strands of DNA could be so manipulated to be cut at particular known points, it only needed the power to join such strands together in desired combinations for genetic engineering to be a reality. As restriction enzymes were found to leave DNA strands ‘sticky’ and ready to combine with certain other ‘sticky’ strands it was soon apparent to molecular biologists that genetic engineering was at last a practical proposition.

For his work on restriction enzymes Arber shared the 1978 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine with Smith and Daniel Nathans.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Werner Arber
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Arber, Werner (vĕr'nər är'bər), 1929-, Swiss microbiologist. A professor at the Univ. of Geneva (1960-70) and later at the Univ. of Basel (1971-), Arber worked with Daniel Nathans and Hamilton Othanel Smith to understand the nature of genes. The trio discovered and used certain enzymes that break down genetic material in order to study hereditary mutation in bacteria. For their work the three shared the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Wikipedia: Werner Arber
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Werner Arber

Werner Arber
Born June 3, 1929
Nationality Switzerland
Fields microbiology
Known for restriction endonucleases
Notable awards 1978, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

Werner Arber (born June 3, 1929) is a Swiss microbiologist and geneticist. Along with American researchers Hamilton Smith and Daniel Nathans, Werner Arber shared the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of restriction endonucleases. Their work would lead to the development of recombinant DNA technology.

Werner Arber studied chemistry and physics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich from 1949 to 1953. Late in 1953 he took an assistantship for electron microscopy at the University of Geneva, in time left the electron microscope, went on to research bacteriophages and write his dissertation on defective lambda prophage mutants. He received his doctorate in 1958 from the University of Geneva.

Arber then worked at the University of Southern California in phage genetics with Joe Bertani starting in the summer of 1958. Late in 1959 he accepted an offer to return to Geneva at the beginning of 1960, but only after spending "several very fruitful weeks"[1] at each of the laboratories of Gunther Stent at University of California, Berkeley, Joshua Lederberg at Stanford University and Salvador Luria at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Back at the University of Geneva, he worked in a laboratory in the basement of the Physics Institute where he carried out productive research and hosted "a number of first class graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and senior scientists."[2] In 1965 he was promoted to extraordinary professor for molecular genetics at the University of Geneva. In 1971 he moved to the University of Basel, after spending a year as a visiting professor in the Department of Molecular Biology of the University of California in Berkeley. In Basel, he was one of the first persons to work in the newly constructed Biozentrum [3], which housed the departments of biophysics, biochemistry, microbiology, structural biology, cell biology and pharmacology which was conducive to interdisciplinary research.

He is member of the World Knowledge Dialogue Scientific Board.

Arber is married and has two daughters.

References

  • Konforti, B (Feb 2000). "History. The servant with the scissors". Nature structural biology 7 (2): 99–100. doi:10.1038/72469. ISSN 1072-8368. PMID 10655607. 
  • Raju, Tn (Oct 1999). "The Nobel chronicles. 1978: Werner Arber (b 1929); Hamilton O Smith (b 1931); Daniel Nathans (b 1928)". Lancet 354 (9189): 1567. ISSN 0140-6736. PMID 10551539. 
  • Shampo, Ma; Kyle, Ra (Oct 1995). "Werner Arber--Nobel laureate". Mayo Clinic proceedings. Mayo Clinic 70 (10): 945. ISSN 0025-6196. PMID 7564545. 
  • Kroon, Am (Feb 1979). "The Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology in 1978 (Werner Arber, Daniel Nathans, Hamilton Smith)". Nederlands tijdschrift voor geneeskunde 123 (5): 153–6. ISSN 0028-2162. PMID 368662. 
  • Piekarowicz, A (1979). "Werner Arber, Daniel Nathans and Hamilton Smith. Nobel prizes for the studies on DNA restriction enzymes". Postepy biochemii 25 (2): 251–3. ISSN 0032-5422. PMID 388391. 
  • Berg, K (Dec 1978). "The Nobel prize in physiology and medicine 1978. Nobel prize to a controversial research field". Tidsskrift for den Norske laegeforening : tidsskrift for praktisk medicin, ny raekke 98 (34-36): 1741–2. ISSN 0029-2001. PMID 725894. 
  • Desiderio, S; Boyer, S (Nov 1978). "Arber, Smith and Nathans: Nobel Laureates in medicine and physiology, 1978". The Johns Hopkins medical journal 143 (5): ix-x. ISSN 0021-7263. PMID 364154. 
  • "The Nobel prizewinners 1978: medicine. From modest beginnings…". Nature 275 (5682): 689–90. Oct 1978. ISSN 0028-0836. PMID 360075. 
  • Peterson, Lr; Gerding, Dn (Aug 1978). "Protein binding and antibiotic concentrations". Lancet 2 (8085): 376. ISSN 0140-6736. PMID 79742. 
  • Petterson, R (1978). "Nobel prize laureates in physiology and medicine". Duodecim; laaketieteellinen aikakauskirja 94 (23): 1466–9. ISSN 0012-7183. PMID 729493. 

External links

v • d • e
Nobel Laureates in Physiology or Medicine

Baruch Blumberg / Daniel Gajdusek (1976) · Roger Guillemin / Andrew Schally / Rosalyn Yalow (1977) · Werner Arber / Daniel Nathans / Hamilton O. Smith (1978) · Allan Cormack / Godfrey Hounsfield (1979) · Baruj Benacerraf / Jean Dausset / George Snell (1980) · Roger Sperry / David H. Hubel / Torsten Wiesel (1981) · Sune Bergström / Bengt I. Samuelsson / John Vane (1982) · Barbara McClintock (1983) · Niels Jerne / Georges Köhler / César Milstein (1984) · Michael Brown / Joseph L. Goldstein (1985) · Stanley Cohen / Rita Levi-Montalcini (1986) · Susumu Tonegawa (1987) · James W. Black / Gertrude B. Elion / George H. Hitchings (1988) · J. Michael Bishop / Harold E. Varmus (1989) · Joseph Murray / E. Donnall Thomas (1990) · Erwin Neher / Bert Sakmann (1991) · Edmond Fischer / Edwin G. Krebs (1992) · Richard J. Roberts / Phillip Sharp (1993) · Alfred G. Gilman / Martin Rodbell (1994) · Edward B. Lewis / Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard / Eric F. Wieschaus (1995) · Peter C. Doherty / Rolf M. Zinkernagel (1996) · Stanley B. Prusiner (1997) · Robert F. Furchgott / Louis Ignarro / Ferid Murad (1998) · Günter Blobel (1999) · Arvid Carlsson / Paul Greengard / Eric Kandel (2000)
Complete roster · 1901–1925 · 1926–1950 · 1951–1975 · 1976–2000 · 2001–present

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