Erwin Chargaff

Ukrainian-born biochemist who emigrated to the United States (1905–2002)

Person · Open Library

Works: 31

Top works

The Nucleic acids
Nucleic Acids : Chemistry and Biology
Brevier der Ahnungen. Eine Auswahl aus dem Werk.
The nucleic acids
The nucleic acids

via Open Library + Wikidata

Music · MusicBrainz

Type: Person
Gender: Male
Origin: Czechia
Active from: 1894-06-08
Active to: 1942-08-18

classicalcomposerjazzpianist

Discography

Discogs Stream

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Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners: 6
Total plays: 18

via Last.fm · Erwin Chargaff

Academic profile · OpenAlex

62h-index

Works: 378
Cited by: 15,786

Research areas

ChemistryBiologyDNABiochemistryGene

Most cited works

The nucleic acids1955 · 2,030 cit
THE BIOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE THROMBOPLASTIC PROTEIN OF BLOOD1946 · 615 cit
Chemical specificity of nucleic acids and mechanism of their enzymatic degradation1950 · 510 cit
TECHNIQUES FOR THE DEMONSTRATION BY CHROMATOGRAPHY OF NITROGENOUS LIPIDE CONSTITUENTS, SULFUR-CONTAINING AMINO ACIDS, AND REDUCING SUGARS1948 · 303 cit
THE SEPARATION AND ESTIMATION OF RIBONUCLEOTIDES IN MINUTE QUANTITIES1950 · 297 cit

via OpenAlex · CC0

Recent publications · Crossref

5 total works indexed

Fiji: an open-source platform for biological-image analysis
· 2012 · cited 65,151x
Global and regional mortality from 235 causes of death for 20 age groups in 1990 and 2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010
· 2012 · cited 10,742x
Minimal information for studies of extracellular vesicles 2018 (MISEV2018): a position statement of the International Society for Extracellular Vesicles and update of the MISEV2014 guidelines
· 2018 · cited 9,395x
A comparative risk assessment of burden of disease and injury attributable to 67 risk factors and risk factor clusters in 21 regions, 1990–2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010
· 2012 · cited 9,223x
The mutational constraint spectrum quantified from variation in 141,456 humans
· 2020 · cited 8,923x

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Quotes

“Outside his own ever-narrowing field of specialization, a scientist is a layman. What members of an academy of science have in common is a certain form of semiparasitic living.”
“What I see coming is a gigantic slaughterhouse, a molecular Auschwitz, in which valuable enzymes, hormones, and so on will be extracted instead of gold teeth.”
“Now one could say, at the risk of some superficiality, that there exist principally two types of scientists. The ones, and they are rare, wish to understand the world, to know nature; the others, far more frequent, wish to explain it. The first are searching for truth, often with knowledge that they will not attain it; the second strive for plausibility, for the achievement of an intellectually consistent, and hence successful, view of the world.”
“We do not know what life is, and yet we manipulate it as if it were an inorganic salt solution...”
“Unangenehme Seher werden meistens als Narren abgeschrieben [Visionaries of uncomfortable truths are mostly dismissed as fools]”

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA

Key facts

Born: ( 1905-08-11 ) 11 August 1905, Czernowitz , Duchy of Bukovina, Austria-Hungary
Died: 20 June 2002 (2002-06-20) (aged 96), New York City , United States
Education: Gymnasium Wasagasse , Vienna College of Technology (1924–1928)
Known for: Chargaff's rules
Spouse: Vera Broido ( married</span>"}]]}'>m. 1928 ; died 1995 )
Children: Thomas Chargaff
Awards: Pasteur Medal (1949), National Medal of Science (1974)
Fields: Biochemistry
Institutions: Yale University (1925–1930), University of Berlin (1930–1933), Pasteur Institute (1933–1934), Columbia University (1935–1974), Roosevelt Hospital (1974–1992)
Doctoral advisor: Fritz Feigl
Doctoral students: Seymour S. Cohen , Boris Magasanik

via Wikipedia infobox

Wikidata facts

Show 4 more facts

date of birth: 1905-08-11
date of death: 2002-06-20
name in native language: Erwin Chargaff
P8168: Krásna Ves

Sources (6)

via Wikidata · CC0

~12 min read

Article

Erwin Chargaff (11 August 1905 – 20 June 2002) was an Austro-Hungarian-born American biochemist, writer, and professor of biochemistry at Columbia University medical school. A Bucovinian Jew who immigrated to the United States during the Nazi regime, he penned a well-reviewed autobiography, Heraclitean Fire: Sketches from a Life Before Nature. Through careful experimentation, Chargaff discovered two rules, called Chargaff's rules, which helped lead to the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA.

Early life