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Few remember the man who discovered the "molecule of life" three-quarters of a century before Watson and Crick revealed its structure
On February 26, 1869, in the old university town of Tübingen in southwest Germany, the young Swiss doctor Friedrich Miescher, who had settled there only a few months earlier, completed a letter to his uncle in which he described a momentous discovery. He had found a substance that he was certain resided in the cell nucleus and which differed in chemical composition from proteins or any other compound known at the time. Without grasping the reach of his work, Miescher had started one of the greatest scientific revolutions. Years later, it would completely change the fundamental understanding of life and lead to medical breakthroughs unimaginable in Miescher's time.
Johann Friedrich Miescher was born into a family of scientists in 1844 (he was always known as Friedrich, even in his publications later in life). Miescher's father and his maternal uncle, Wilhelm His, were distinguished medical doctors and professors of anatomy and physiology at the University of Basel in Switzerland. A range of scientists frequently visited the home, and their lively discussions exposed the young Miescher to a variety of scientific ideas and concepts. In such surroundings, Miescher developed a keen interest in the natural sciences. At the age of 17 he started his studies of medicine in Basel and graduated in 1867 when he was only 23 years old.
At first he considered practicing medicine, like his father. However, poor hearing from an illness he had contracted in childhood would have made some parts of that job difficult for him. His fascination with the sciences suggested research as an avenue for him to pursue. Inspired by his uncle's conviction that the "last remaining questions concerning the development of tissues could only be solved on the basis of chemistry," Miescher decided to study biochemistry.
In the spring of 1868 he moved to Tübingen to work under the guidance of two of the most renowned scientists of the time: the organic chemist Adolf Strecker, in whose laboratory Miescher worked for one semester, and the biochemist Felix Hoppe-Seyler, one of the pioneers in a nascent branch of science referred to as "physiological chemistry." Between 1860 and 1871,...