Nicholas R. Cozzarelli, who made fundamental discoveries about how gyrases and topoisomerases untangle DNA, and revolutionized the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) as the journal's editor-in chief, died last month of complications of treatment for Burkitt's lymphoma. He was 67."He basically was a pioneer in thinking about all the ways that, as he put it at the end of his life, protein machines bully and push DNA around," Michael Botchan of the University of California at Berkeley, a colleague and friend, explained. "His insights into the physical functional structural state of DNA were a major contribution," Arthur Kornberg at Stanford University Medical School told The Scientist.Cozzarelli became interested in gyrases as a postdoc in Kornberg's lab, where he mapped drug resistance to quinolones to one of the subunits of gyrase. The discovery, which he once called his proudest achievement as a scientist, brought quinolones to...
molecule un-knotted itselfPNASCarlos BustamanteThe ScientistPNASPNASSolomon H. SnyderPNASaharding@the-scientist.comhttp://mcb.berkeley.edu/labs/cozzarelli/http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0602531103v1http://mcb.berkeley.edu/faculty/BMB/botchanm.htmlThe Scientisthttp://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/11896/http://mcb.berkeley.edu/faculty/BMB/botchanm.htmlSciencePM_ID 227059http://alice.berkeley.edu/main/carlos.htmlhttp://www.mbg.jhmi.edu/FacultyDetails.asp?PersonID=726
Interested in reading more?
Become a Member of
Receive full access to more than 35 years of archives, as well as TS Digest, digital editions of The Scientist, feature stories, and much more!