Daniel Nathans, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1978

Daniel Nathans (October 30, 1928 – November 16, 1999) was an American microbiologist. Sometimes called the father of modern biotechnology.

Life and career

Nathans was born in Wilmington, Delaware, the last of nine children born to Russian Jewish immigrant parents, Sarah (Levitan) and Samuel Nathans. During the Great Depression his father lost his small business and was unemployed for a long period of time. Nathans went to public schools and then to the University of Delaware, where he studied chemistry, philosophy, and literature. He received a BS in Chemistry from the University of Delaware in 1950. He received his M.D. degree from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri in 1954. After getting an M. D. degree in 1954, Nathan went to the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York(The university hospital of Columbia University) for an internship in medicine with Robert Loeb, a masterful clinician and medical scientist. Nathans served as President of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland from 1995 to 1996.

Along with Werner Arber and Hamilton Smith, Nathans received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1978 for the discovery of restriction enzymes. He was also awarded with National Medal of Science in 1993.

In 1999, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine announced the creation of the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine that was named in his honor posthumously along with Victor McKusick. In 2005, the School of Medicine named one of its four colleges after Nathans.