jan 1, 1960 - Robert W. Holley

Description:

Holley, along with Har Gobind Khorana and Marshall Warren Nirenberg, worked to describe the structure of alanine transfer RNA. He found that the alanine transfer RNA transfers the alanine to the growing polypeptide chain in the ribosome while mRNA is being translated into a protein. Holley and his colleagues then developed a way to isolate the transfer RNA from cells. By 1965, he determined the make up of transfer RNA. This was the first nucleotide sequence ever determined for RNA.