In the early 1970s, researchers reported that restriction enzymes cleave DNA at specific sites, producing individual fragments that are distinguishable using gel electrophoresis.1,2 This timely discovery opened a new window for understanding and manipulating DNA, but for 1993 Nobel laureate and chief scientific officer at New England Biolabs, Sir Richard Roberts, it began a lifelong passion for restriction enzymes and their potential.3
Scientists first observed the biological phenomenon of restriction and modification in the 1950s, but they did not identify and isolate restriction enzymes until the late 1960s.3 In 1970, Hamilton Smith and Kent Wilcox from Johns Hopkins University discovered “endonuclease R” (later named HindII), a restriction enzyme isolated from Hemophilus influenza.1 A year later, Kathleen Danna and Daniel Nathans, also from Johns Hopkins University, found that endonuclease R produced specific fragments of simian virus 40 and that gel electrophoresis could distinguish these fragments from each other.
Richards first encountered ...
