Severo OchoaBorn 24 Sep 1905; died 1 Nov 1993 at age 88.Spanish-American biochemist and molecular biologist whosharedthe 1959 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Arthur Kornberg for “for their discovery of the mechanisms in the biological synthesis of ribonucleic acid and deoxyribonucleic acid” Ochoa discoveredan enzyme in bacteria that enabled him to synthesize ribonucleic acid (RNA), a substance of central importance to the synthesis of proteins by the cell. Ochoa's enzyme produces ribonucleic acids from ribonucleotides having twice the ratio of phosphoric acid residues as that contained in ribonucleic acid. The RNA is formed by splitting out half of the phosphoric acid residues, and linking the nucleotides together to form large molecules. |
