Phoebus+Aaron+Theodore+Levene

=Phoebus Aaron Theodore Levene =



Born: February 25, 1869 Died: September 6, 1940 Religion: Jewish Nationality: Russian Occupation: Head of the Biochemical Laboratory (Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research) Phoebus Leven was born in Lithuania, Russia and grew up in St. Petersburg, Russia. He attended the Imperial Military Medical Academy where he studied medicine, but he increasingly got interested in biochemistry. In 1893, two years after getting his M.D., he and his family emigrated to the United States due to anti-Semetic pogroms. While in America he studied medicine in New York. When he lived in New York he attended Columbia University in his free time, where he began to publish papers on structures of sugars. In 1905, he was appointed as head of the biochemical laboratory at the Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research. He would spend the rest of his career here, and this is where he would identify the components of DNA. He discovered ribose in 1909 and he discovered deoxyribose in 1929. He also discovered that DNA forms in chains (phosphate-sugar-base...), each individual piece he called a nucleotide. He also concluded that DNA is made up of strings of nucleotides.  DNA Discovery: He discovered the structure of individual units of DNA and RNA, including the fact that they are made up of a 5 carbon sugar (ribose -1909, deoxyribose - 1929), a phosphate group, and a nitrogenous base. He also discovered that these were liked together in the phosphate-sugar-base pattern. He then called this a nucleotide. Levene's model of DNA know as a tetranucleotide, we now know that this is incorrect.

Sources: "Phoebus Aaron Theodor Levene." __Answers.Com__. 2008. 9 Apr. 2008 <[|http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/f/f0/Tetranucleotide_.png>.] "Phoebus Aaron Theodor Levene Biography." __Book Rags__. 2006. 9 Apr. 2008 <[|http://www.bookrags.com/biography/phoebus-aaron-theodor-levene-wog/>.] "Phoebus Levene." __Wikipedia__. 6 Feb. 2008. 9 Apr. 2008 <[|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_Levene>.] "Today in Science History." 6 Sept. 2007. 9 Apr. 2008 <[|http://www.todayinsci.com/L/Levene_Phoebus/LevenePhoebusThm.jpg>.]