Leonard Solomon Lerman (June 27, 1925 – September 19, 2012) was an American scientist most noted for his work on DNA.

Life and career

Lerman was born and raised in Pittsburgh, the son of Freamah and Meyer Lerman, Jewish immigrants from Ukraine. His father was a department store buyer. Lerman began attending the Carnegie Institute of Technology before graduating from high school and received his BS in five semesters. As a graduate student with Linus Pauling at the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

, Lerman discovered that antibodies have two binding sites. Later, perhaps his most important discovery was that certain molecules bind to DNA by intercalation. This discovery has shaped much of science's understanding about how drugs and mutagens interact with DNA. Later, during a sabbatical at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...

, Lerman had a chance to work with later Nobel prize winners

Sydney Brenner Sydney Brenner (13 January 1927 – 5 April 2019) was a South African biologist. In 2002, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with H. Robert Horvitz and Sir John E. Sulston. Brenner made significant contributions to work ...

and Francis Crick.Leonard Lerman, former senior lecturer at MIT, dies at 87.
MIT News, September 28, 2012. Lerman led a productive research program at

Vanderbilt University Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and rail magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the school its initial $1-million ...

in Nashville, the

University of Colorado Health Sciences Center The University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus is the academic health sciences campus in Aurora, Colorado that houses the University of Colorado's six health sciences-related schools and colleges, including the University of Colorado School ...

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

and

SUNY Albany The State University of New York at Albany, commonly referred to as the University at Albany, UAlbany or SUNY Albany, is a Public university, public research university with campuses in Albany, New York, Albany, Rensselaer, New York, Rensselae ...

, the State University of New York at Albany. Lerman's lab crew included at least one Nobel prize winner,

Sidney Altman Sidney Altman (May 7, 1939 – April 5, 2022) was a Canadian-American molecular biologist, who was the Sterling Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology and Chemistry at Yale University. In 1989, he shared the Nobel Prize in ...

, and another, Tom Maniatis, who also became one of the leading molecular biologists of his time. Lerman's last major effort, begun with Stuart Fischer at SUNY, was the invention of denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE), a technique used to separate DNA molecules. DGGE is widely used by scientists who wish to ascertain biodiversity in microbial communities. Dr. Lerman was also a senior member of one of the first

biotechnology Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used ...

companies, the Genetics Institute, co-founded by one of his students, Tom Maniatis. Dr. Lerman was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, USA.

References

External links

*
Sidney Altman's Nobel Prize Autobiography
with a description of the time he spent working with Leonard Lerman in Colorado {{DEFAULTSORT:Lerman, Leonard 1925 births American molecular biologists American geneticists California Institute of Technology alumni 2012 deaths Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences