Role Models in Science and Engineering: Severo Ochoa

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Biochemist and molecular biologist Severo Ochoa is best known for sharing the 1959 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with American biochemist Arthur Kornberg for discovering a bacterial enzyme that enabled him to synthesize RNA (ribonucleic acid).

To read his full biography and other STEM Role Models click here.

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Not to take anything away from his work (since he really was a fine scientist) but this was a case a of the Nobel Prize being awarded "too soon" because the prize was actually awarded for the "discovery of the mechanisms in the biological synthesis of ribonucleic acid," but polynucleotide phosphorylase is not the enzyme that does that.

By Nick Theodorakis (not verified) on 03 Apr 2013 #permalink