A Cut Above

enzymes by appealing to the obsession over purity Date: September 28, 1998 Specialty Enzymes Every once in a great while a discovery is made that not only sheds light on the true genius of nature but leaves one completely amazed that it could possibly work that way. The discovery of restriction enzymes in the mid 1970s and the explication of their role in nature was one of those discoveries. For biologists attempting to apprehend the way in which organic life reproduces itself, the finding ca

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enzymes by appealing to the obsession over purity

Date: September 28, 1998 Specialty Enzymes

Every once in a great while a discovery is made that not only sheds light on the true genius of nature but leaves one completely amazed that it could possibly work that way.

The discovery of restriction enzymes in the mid 1970s and the explication of their role in nature was one of those discoveries. For biologists attempting to apprehend the way in which organic life reproduces itself, the finding came as a revelation, even though there doesn't seem to be any clear indication of how this mechanism could have begun in the first place. Never the ones to look a gift horse in the mouth, molecular biologists used this insight to develop techniques that mimic the genetic machinery of reproduction.

In what has amounted to the genetic equivalent of the Rosetta Stone, restriction enzymes are ...

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