Frederick Sanger: DNA Sequencing Pioneer

• Frederick Sanger was an experimental biochemist who won the Nobel Prize twice.
• Sanger sequenced the components of proteins, RNA, and DNA.
• His DNA sequencing technique was revolutionary for molecular biology.
• It also ushered in a new era for medicine, gene therapy, and genetic manipulation.
• Sanger was born in Gloucestershire, UK, in 1918.
• Sanger's father was a doctor in a rural general practice.
• Sanger was influenced by his brother's interest in natural history.
• Sanger was also influenced by his father’s Quaker beliefs.
• He had a strong sense of truth and conscience from his father’s beliefs, and these beliefs would later infuse his scientific career.
• Sanger went to Cambridge University in 1936 to study natural sciences.
• He became interested in biochemistry there.
• He graduated in 1939 with an undergraduate degree.

Doctoral Research

• Sanger decided to study advanced biochemistry.
• His parents had both died while he was an undergraduate.
• He used money he had inherited from them, and in 1940, he began a self-funded PhD on the metabolism of amino acids.
• Amino acids are the basic chemical building blocks of proteins.
• He was exempted from military service during World War II due to his Quaker pacifism.
• Instead, he conducted applied research on nitrogen uptake in potatoes for the government.
• He received his PhD in 1943.
• Sanger cited the methodology of research as his greatest strength.
• He joined a group of scientists in Cambridge who were studying proteins.
• He spent the next decade attempting to decipher the complete amino acid sequence of insulin.
• The sequence was completed in 1955.
• Sanger also revealed that each protein possesses a unique set of amino acids and distinct 3D structure.
• Insulin was the first protein to be sequenced.

Nobel Award

• He received the 1958 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on the chemical sequencing of insulin.

Genetic Research

• In 1962, Sanger moved to the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge.
• Sanger aimed to untangle the double-helix structure of DNA to reveal the bases in specific strands of DNA
• He developed a sequencing method using radioactive isotopes to “label” individual fragments
• By 1967, he had a complete sequence of RNA from E. coli bacteria.

Sanger Sequencing

• In 1977, he published his dideoxy method of DNA sequencing, later known as “Sanger Sequencing.”
• The method isolates DNA fragments using a molecular inhibitor to prevent DNA strands from extending.
• The strands are ordered from shortest to longest so the base sequence can be read.
• By 1982, Sanger sequenced 48,502 base pairs of DNA.
• In 1981, he mapped the first human genome, the DNA of cell mitochondria.

Second Nobel Prize

• He shared the 1980 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Walter Gilbert and Paul Berg for DNA sequencing.
• Sanger's sequencing method enabled fragments of DNA to be isolated, cloned, and reattached to create modified genes to treat—or be resistant to—genetic disorders.

Research Center

• He opened genome research center the Wellcome Sanger Institute in Cambridge, UK, in 1993.
• John Sulston was the first director of the Wellcome Sanger Institute.
• Sanger developed novel day-to-day laboratory techniques, such as micromethods for manipulating tiny volumes of chemicals.

Frederick Sanger was a biochemist known for sequencing the components of proteins, RNA, and DNA. His techniques revolutionized molecular biology. Sanger's technique ushered in a new era for medicine, gene therapy, and genetic manipulation. He was born in Gloucestershire, UK, in 1918 and later studied at Cambridge University.