Genetic Research Pioneer McCarty Dies At 93

Dr. Maclyn McCarty, a pioneer in genetic research who helped demonstrate that genes were composed of DNA, has died in New York City. He was 93. His death Sunday was announced by Rockefeller University, where worked for more than 60 years. With Dr. Oswald Avery and Dr. Colin MacLeod, McCarty conducted experiments in the 1940s on pneumococcus that pinpointed DNA as the carrier of genetic information. Scientists had previously thought DNA too simple a substance to carry such information. The team's work, summarized in a 1944 article in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, paved the way for studies a decade later by Dr. James Watson and Dr. Francis Crick that revealed DNA's double helix structure, and for countless genetic studies since. Born in South Bend, Ind., McCarty graduated from Stanford University in 1933 and earned his medical degree at Johns Hopkins University in 1937. Shortly thereafter, he joined what was then called the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, where he worked as a lieutenant commander in the Navy Medical Corps from 1942 to 1946.

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