Rudolf Signer (17 March 1903,

Herisau Herisau is a municipality and the capital of the canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden in Switzerland. It is the seat of the canton's government and parliament; the judicial authorities are situated in Trogen. The central hamlet and the houses around ...

, Switzerland – 1 December 1990, Gümlingen, Switzerland) contributed to the discovery of the DNA

double helix A double is a look-alike or doppelgänger; one person or being that resembles another. Double, The Double or Dubble may also refer to: Film and television * Double (filmmaking), someone who substitutes for the credited actor of a character * ...

. He was a Professor for

organic chemistry Organic chemistry is a subdiscipline within chemistry involving the scientific study of the structure, properties, and reactions of organic compounds and organic materials, i.e., matter in its various forms that contain carbon atoms.Clayden, ...

at the

University of Bern The University of Bern (german: Universität Bern, french: Université de Berne, la, Universitas Bernensis) is a university in the Swiss capital of Bern and was founded in 1834. It is regulated and financed by the Canton of Bern. It is a compreh ...

from 1935 until 1972.

Education

Signer was the son of Jakob Signer, a chemical scientist working in the textile industry, and his wife Dorothea Agnes Scherrer. Rudolf Signer went to high school in

St. Gallen , neighboring_municipalities = Eggersriet, Gaiserwald, Gossau, Herisau (AR), Mörschwil, Speicher (AR), Stein (AR), Teufen (AR), Untereggen, Wittenbach , twintowns = Liberec (Czech Republic) , website = ...

and matriculated at the ETH Zurich in 1921 to study chemistry, initially in order to become a teacher. 1927 he graduated with his doctorate under the supervision of Hermann Staudinger. Already 1926 he had become ''

Wissenschaftlicher Assistent Wissenschaftlicher Assistent, often shortened to Assistent, literally "scientific assistant", is an academic position at German universities for researchers with doctoral degrees and additional academic qualifications, who are typically employed t ...

'' at the

University of Fribourg The University of Fribourg (french: Université de Fribourg; german: Universität Freiburg) is a public university located in Fribourg, Switzerland. The roots of the university can be traced back to 1580, when the notable Jesuit Peter Canisi ...

, where he qualified as a professor with a Habilitation.

Career

Signer spent 1932–1933 in

Uppsala Uppsala (, or all ending in , ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the county seat of Uppsala County and the fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inhabitants in 2019. Located north of the c ...

and

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

on a

Rockefeller Rockefeller is a German surname, originally given to people from the village of Rockenfeld near Neuwied in the Rhineland and commonly referring to subjects associated with the Rockefeller family. It may refer to: People with the name Rockefeller f ...

-scholarship. He became a non-tenured professor for general and inorganic chemistry at the

in 1935 and was tenured in 1939. He went on to become director of the university's Institute of Chemistry and retired as emeritus in 1972.

Research

Signer focused on macromolecular chemistry, in particular with regards to

natural products A natural product is a natural compound or substance produced by a living organism—that is, found in nature. In the broadest sense, natural products include any substance produced by life. Natural products can also be prepared by chemical sy ...

. In 1938 he measured and described the properties of DNA, discovering its thread-like structure. In 1950 Signer produced extraordinarily pure DNA from the

thymus The thymus is a specialized primary lymphoid organ of the immune system. Within the thymus, thymus cell lymphocytes or ''T cells'' mature. T cells are critical to the adaptive immune system, where the body adapts to specific foreign invaders. ...

of calves, of which he took 15 grams of extraordinarily pure DNA to London. In England he gave it to various scientists, among them Maurice Wilkins, in order to promote research in the field. The analysis of

X-ray An X-ray, or, much less commonly, X-radiation, is a penetrating form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10 picometers to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30&nb ...

images of these DNA samples, especially

Photo 51 ' ''Photo 51'' is an X-ray based fiber diffraction image of a paracrystalline gel composed of DNA fiber taken by Raymond Gosling, a graduate student working under the supervision of Rosalind Franklin in May 1952 at King's College London, wh ...

by Rosalind Franklin, allowed James Watson and Francis Crick to discover the double-helix structure of DNA. The remainder of the DNA which Signer brought to England survive today in the collection of

King's College, London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public university, public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of George IV of the United Kingdom, King G ...

. Over 250 of Signer's scientific writings were published during his lifetime. The

Lavoisier Medal A Lavoisier Medal is an award named and given in honor of Antoine Lavoisier, considered by some to be a father of modern chemistry.

was awarded to him for his scientific work and achievements.

References

External links

* * 1903 births 1990 deaths Swiss chemists {{biologist-stub