by Josh Forman, Head of Science, Education & Outreach
You’ve probably heard of Watson and Crick, the much-heralded team that worked out the double helix structure of DNA. But their work was very much a case of ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’, and whilst we’ve rightly become aware of fundamental contributions of Rosalind Franklin, there are other unsung heroes who paved the way for their big breakthrough, and one such individual is Erwin Chargaff.
Chargaff, a brilliant biochemist, spent the majority of his academic career at Columbia University in New York. Inspired by the ground-breaking work of Oswald Avery and his colleagues, who had shown that DNA, not protein, was the molecule of heredity, Chargaff delved deep into the world of DNA. Of Avery’s work, Chargaff said, “I saw before me, in dark contours, the beginning of a grammar of biology.”
Chargaff was always someone that was happy to swim against the tide. He felt that the conventional wisdom of the time of wrong. Most scientists believed the fact that the amount of adenine (A) always matched the amount of thymine (T), and the amount of guanine (G) always matched the amount of cytosine (C) was a quirk or an experimental anomaly. Chargaff believed differently and set out to prove it was a fundamental principle of DNA. This simple observation, now known as Chargaff’s rules, was a game-changer. You may also have heard of this as base pairing, and it is fundamental to the entire way that DNA functions and replicates.
Chargaff travelled the world, giving talks and lectures on this work, and it is known that when in Cambridge, Watson and Crick attended. Chargaff’s wit came to the fore after this meeting, reflecting, “I was impressed by their extreme ignorance.” Whether this was a fair reflection or not, it gave Watson and Crick a crucial basis for their work, published just a year after their meeting. They utilised the concept of base pairing as essential to the structure and function of DNA. Without Chargaff’s work, Watson and Crick’s iconic double helix model wouldn’t have been possible.
While Chargaff didn’t win a Nobel Prize, he did receive numerous awards and honours for his ground-breaking research. His work laid the foundation for modern molecular biology and genetics.
Chargaff’s life was as fascinating as his science. Born in 1905 in Czernowitz, now part of Ukraine, his early life took him to Vienna, for his PhD, then Yale and eventually Berlin, before he fled Nazi Germany in 1933 and eventually settling in the United States, via Paris.
He was a brilliant scientist, but he was also a bit of a philosopher. Despite his significant contributions to science, Chargaff’s later years were marked by a growing disillusionment with the field. He was sceptical of the direction of modern science, becoming increasingly disenfranchised after being overlooked for a Nobel prize. He often questioned the ethics and potential consequences of genetic engineering. He became increasingly critical of the reductionist approach to biology and the relentless pursuit of technological advancement. Chargaff warned of the potential dangers of genetic engineering and urged scientists to consider the ethical implications of their research.
So, the next time you think about DNA, remember Erwin Chargaff. He might not be as famous as Watson and Crick, but his work was just as important. His story is a reminder that even the most overlooked figures can have a profound impact on the world.
