Oswald Avery

Oswald Theodore Avery Jr. FRS (October 21, 1877 – February 20, 1955) was a Canadian-born American physician and medical researcher. The major part of his career was spent at the Rockefeller University Hospital in New York City. Avery was one of the first molecular biologists and a pioneer in immunochemistry, but he is best known for the experiment (published in 1944 with his co-workers Colin MacLeod and Maclyn McCarty) that isolated DNA as the material of which genes and chromosomes are made.

The Nobel laureate Arne Tiselius said that Avery was the most deserving scientist to not receive the Nobel Prize for his work, though he was nominated for the award throughout the 1930s, '40s, and '50s.

The lunar crater Avery was named in his honor.

Biography

Oswald Avery was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia. His father was a Baptist minister, who was invited to move to New York City in 1887 to lead a congregation. Avery received his AB degree in 1900 from Colgate University. He earned an M.D. degree from the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1904. He practiced medicine in New York City until 1907 when he became a researcher at Hoagland Laboratory in Brooklyn, New York. As an adult, Avery suffered from hyperthyroidism (Graves' disease) and he underwent thyroid surgery in 1934. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1936.