Norman Simmons

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Template:Short description Script error: No such module "For". Script error: No such module "Template wrapper".Script error: No such module "Check for clobbered parameters". Norman Simmons (May 28, 1915 – January 27, 2004)[1] was a DNA research pioneer.[1][2]

Life

Norman Simmons was born in New York City in 1915. He obtained a B.S. at the City College of New York, a D.M.D.at Harvard University, and a Ph.D. in 1950 at University of Rochester, with a dissertation titled “Investigation of Submaxillary Mucoid and the Defense Mechanisms of the Mouth:" this was regarded as truly innovative.[1]

He was also a sculptor, painter, actor and musician, throughout his life. He died in Los Angeles in 2004, survived by his wife and two sons.

Career

He was appointed as a professor of biophysics and nuclear medicine in the UCLA Medical School, and of oral medicine in the UCLA Dental School, and he participated in the development of the latter.[1] He remained at UCLA for the whole of his career.

Research

Simmons worked with Elkan Blout[3] on proteins and polypeptides and was also recognized for isolating a structurally pure form of DNA.[4] This was the DNA which Rosalind Franklin used in her X-ray diffraction studies[5] that rewarded Maurice Wilkins, James Watson and Francis Crick with the Nobel Prize for the double helix model of DNA.[6] In his Nobel Prize lecture of 1962, Wilkins thanked Simmons "for having refined techniques of isolating DNA, and thereby helping a great many workers including ourselves."[7]

References

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  1. a b c d In Memoriam: Norman Simmons on University of California website
  2. "Obituaries". Harvard Dental Bulletin 10(4): 28. Fall 2004-Winter 2005.
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  7. Wilkins, Maurice H. “The Molecular Configuration of Nucleic Acids.” Nobel Lectures, 1942-1962, 1962, p. 781.

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External links

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