Heinz Fraenkel-Conrat
University of California, Berkeley
July 29, 1910 - April 10, 1999
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Scientific Discipline: Biochemistry Membership Type:
Member
(elected 1974)
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Molecular biologist Heinz Fraenkel-Conrat, an expert on protein chemistry, developed a modern understanding of the genetics, structures, and functions of proteins, RNA, and viruses. His research covered a wide range of topics, including proteolytic enzymes, pituitary hormones, crystallization and characterization of crotoxin (a neurotoxic protein found in rattlesnake venom), and the chemical modification of proteins. He was the first to demonstrate self-assembly of a macromolecular body when he found that tobacco mosaic viruses could be taken apart and reassembled. This research also led to Fraenkel-Conrat’s most significant contribution: the discovery that the nucleic acid centers (the isolated ribonucleic acids) of every virus particle were carriers of genetic information that managed viral reproduction. This finding established entirely new fields of study for virology, mutagenesis, and the functionality of amino acid replacements in viral proteins.
A German native, Fraenkel-Conrat earned his M.D. degree from the University of Breslau in 1933 and, after fleeing the rise of the Nazis, his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Edinburgh in 1936. He then conducted research at the Rockefeller Institute and the Butantan Institute in Sao Paulo, Brazil. He accepted a position as a research associate at the Institute for Experimental Biology at the University of California, Berkeley in 1938. Fraenkel-Conrat left four years later to become a chemist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Western Regional Laboratory, and he worked there until 1950. He returned to the University of California, Berkeley the following year as an associate research biochemist for its Virus Laboratory. In 1958, he switched from research to education, holding successive positions as Professor of Virology, of Molecular Biology, and of Molecular and Cell Biology at the university. For his work on nucleic acids, Fraenkel-Conrat shared the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Research (with Hershey and Schramm) and was selected as the California Scientist of the Year, both in 1958.
