Paul C. Zamecnik
Harvard University
November 22, 1912 - October 27, 2009
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Scientific Discipline: Biochemistry Membership Type:
Member
(elected 1968)
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Paul Zamecnik’s pioneering work in molecular biology led to the understanding of how messenger RNA is translated to protein, where the translation occurs, and how complementary nucleic acid sequences may be used to fight infectious diseases.
Zamecnik attended Dartmouth College as an undergraduate and earned his medical degree from Harvard in 1936. His interest in proteins was piqued during his medical internship at Western Reserve University Hospital. In the late 1940s, while he was working at Massachusetts General Hospital, Zamecnik showed that amino acids are drawn to ribosomes and assembled there as proteins. In 1958, his laboratory discovered that transfer RNA delivers amino acids to the ribosomes for protein synthesis.
In 1977, Zamecnik left Harvard and began working with the Worchester Foundation for Experimental Biology. His research there during the 1980s and 1990s turned to antisense DNA and RNA and how these molecular tools could be used to fight diseases such as HIV. The final years of his research were spent at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he worked up until a few weeks before his death.
In addition to his election to the National Academy of Sciences, Zamecnik was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Institute of Medicine. He received the National Medal of Science in 1991 and the Albert Lasker Award for Special Achievement in Medical Science in 1996.
