Nat L. Sternberg (August 2, 1942 – September 26, 1995) was an American
molecular biologist
Molecular biology is the branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecular basis of biological activity in and between cells, including biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactions. The study of chemical and physi ...
and
bacteriophage
A bacteriophage (), also known informally as a ''phage'' (), is a duplodnaviria virus that infects and replicates within bacteria and archaea. The term was derived from "bacteria" and the Greek φαγεῖν ('), meaning "to devour". Bacteri ...
researcher, particularly known for his work on
DNA recombination and the
phage P1.
Early life and education
Born in 1942 in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
,
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
, Sternberg gained a BSc at
Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls about 15,000 undergraduate and 2,800 graduate students on a 35-acre campus.
Being New York City's first publ ...
, followed by a master's at
Long Island University
Long Island University (LIU) is a private university with two main campuses, LIU Post and LIU Brooklyn, in the U.S. state of New York. It offers more than 500 academic programs at its main campuses, online, and at multiple non-residential. LIU ...
.
In 1969, he received a PhD from
Purdue University
Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money ...
,
Indiana
Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...
, researching
T-even phage head proteins under the supervision of Sewell Champe.
Career
In 1970–72, Sternberg held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology of the
Centre national de la recherche scientifique
The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science
Basic research, also called pure research o ...
(CNRS) in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
, under the direction of François Gros, where he researched the head proteins of
phage λ. He then returned to the US, taking up the position of staff fellow in the laboratory of Robert Weisberg at the
National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...
(NIH) in
Bethesda,
Maryland
Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...
, where he continued to study λ, in collaboration with
Lynn W. Enquist
Lynn W. Enquist is professor emeritus in molecular biology at Princeton University, as well as founding editor of the journal ''Annual Review of Virology''. His research focuses on neuroinvasive alpha- herpesviruses.
Education
Enquist received a ...
and others.
In 1976, Sternberg joined the group being established by Michael Yarmolinsky in the Laboratory of Molecular Biology of the
National Cancer Institute
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) coordinates the United States National Cancer Program and is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is one of eleven agencies that are part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. ...
's Frederick Cancer Research Center at
Fort Detrick
Fort Detrick () is a United States Army Futures Command installation located in Frederick, Maryland. Historically, Fort Detrick was the center of the U.S. biological weapons program from 1943 to 1969. Since the discontinuation of that program, i ...
,
Frederick, Maryland
Frederick is a city in and the county seat of Frederick County, Maryland. It is part of the Baltimore–Washington Metropolitan Area. Frederick has long been an important crossroads, located at the intersection of a major north–south Native ...
, where he started to study the
phage P1.
From 1981 he directed his own group, continuing to research the P1 phage, as well as branching out to study
DNA recombination in mammalian cells. In 1984, his group moved to the Central Research and Development Department of
DuPont
DuPont de Nemours, Inc., commonly shortened to DuPont, is an American multinational chemical company first formed in 1802 by French-American chemist and industrialist Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours. The company played a major role in ...
, in
Wilmington,
Delaware
Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacent Del ...
, and Sternberg was a senior research fellow at DuPont Merck at the time of his death.
Sternberg advised the NIH on
human genome
The human genome is a complete set of nucleic acid sequences for humans, encoded as DNA within the 23 chromosome pairs in cell nuclei and in a small DNA molecule found within individual mitochondria. These are usually treated separately as the n ...
research. He served on the editorial board of the academic journal, ''
Journal of Molecular Biology
The ''Journal of Molecular Biology'' is a biweekly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering all aspects of molecular biology. It was established in 1959 and is published by Elsevier. The editor-in-chief is Peter Wright ( The Scripps Research In ...
.''
Research
P1 phage had been discovered in 1951, but was little understood when Sternberg began to research the virus.
He discovered the
Cre–''lox'' site-specific recombination Site-specific recombination, also known as conservative site-specific recombination, is a type of genetic recombination in which DNA strand exchange takes place between segments possessing at least a certain degree of sequence homology. Enzymes kno ...
system, in which the
Cre recombinase
Cre recombinase is a tyrosine recombinase enzyme derived from the P1 bacteriophage. The enzyme uses a topoisomerase I-like mechanism to carry out site specific recombination events. The enzyme (38kDa) is a member of the integrase family of site ...
enzyme acts at the ''lox'' recombination site to allow P1's double-stranded DNA
genome
In the fields of molecular biology and genetics, a genome is all the genetic information of an organism. It consists of nucleotide sequences of DNA (or RNA in RNA viruses). The nuclear genome includes protein-coding genes and non-coding ge ...
to circularise after infection. Sternberg, Brian Sauer and others in his group subsequently showed that Cre–''lox'' is a flexible recombination system which also functions in
eukaryotic cells
Eukaryotes () are organisms whose Cell (biology), cells have a cell nucleus, nucleus. All animals, plants, fungi, and many unicellular organisms, are Eukaryotes. They belong to the group of organisms Eukaryota or Eukarya, which is one of the ...
, and it is now widely used in
genetic engineering
Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification or genetic manipulation, is the modification and manipulation of an organism's genes using technology. It is a set of technologies used to change the genetic makeup of cells, including t ...
.
Sternberg elucidated multiple other features of the phage and its life cycle, including
lytic
The lytic cycle ( ) is one of the two cycles of viral reproduction (referring to bacterial viruses or bacteriophages), the other being the lysogenic cycle. The lytic cycle results in the destruction of the infected cell and its membrane. Bacteri ...
and
lysogenic
Lysogeny, or the lysogenic cycle, is one of two cycles of viral reproduction (the lytic cycle being the other). Lysogeny is characterized by integration of the bacteriophage nucleic acid into the host bacterium's genome or formation of a circul ...
replication cyles,
DNA methylation
DNA methylation is a biological process by which methyl groups are added to the DNA molecule. Methylation can change the activity of a DNA segment without changing the sequence. When located in a gene promoter, DNA methylation typically acts t ...
and viral packaging, as well as immunity to the phage.
He and his coworkers also developed
P1-derived cloning vectors, enabling the cloning of very long stretches of DNA, which have been used in mapping the human genome.
Personal life and legacy
Sternberg married Ilene Harfenist, also from Brooklyn, in July 1967. The couple had a daughter, Rebecca. He was diagnosed with cancer in 1987, from which he died in 1995 at
West Chester,
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
.
The Nat L. Sternberg Thesis Prize, an annual award for PhD theses in the field of
prokaryotic
A prokaryote () is a Unicellular organism, single-celled organism that lacks a cell nucleus, nucleus and other membrane-bound organelles. The word ''prokaryote'' comes from the Greek language, Greek wikt:πρό#Ancient Greek, πρό (, 'before') a ...
molecular biology
Molecular biology is the branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecular basis of biological activity in and between cells, including biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactions. The study of chemical and physi ...
, was founded in his memory by former colleagues
Lynn W. Enquist
Lynn W. Enquist is professor emeritus in molecular biology at Princeton University, as well as founding editor of the journal ''Annual Review of Virology''. His research focuses on neuroinvasive alpha- herpesviruses.
Education
Enquist received a ...
and
Thomas J. Silhavy.
Selected publications
Book chapters
*Michael B. Yarmolinsky, Nat Sternberg. "Bacteriophage P1". In ''The Bacteriophages'', Vol. 1, ed. Richard Calendar, pp. 291–438 (Plenum; 1988)
Research papers
*
*
*
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sternberg, Nat
1942 births
1995 deaths
People from Brooklyn
Brooklyn College alumni
Long Island University alumni
Purdue University alumni
Phage workers
American molecular biologists
American virologists
Scientists from New York (state)