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Tributes are paid to Nobel winning scientist Frederick Sanger

Tributes are paid to Nobel winning scientist Frederick Sanger

TRIBUTES have been paid to the British scientist Frederick Sanger who has passed away at the age of 95.

Dr. Sanger was the only person to win two Nobel prizes in chemistry.

He had first won the prize in 1958 for his work in developing techniques to work out the precise chemical structure of proteins. This had enabled him to establish the amino acid sequence of insulin.

Twenty years later he won the prize again, this time for his work on D.N.A. His group had produced the first whole genome sequence in a virus.

Regarded as being one of the greatest scientists of the 20th. Century, Dr. Sanger remained a very modest man, once describing himself as simply “a chap who messed about in his lab”.

He turned down a Knighthood because he did not want to be called Sir. However, in 1986 he was awarded one of Britain’s highest honours, the Order of Merit. 

Professor Colin Blakemore, the former chief executive of the UK Medical Reserch Council, said it was impossible to exaggerate the impact Dr. Sanger’s work had on modern biomedical science. He continued: “His invention of the two critical technical advances — for sequencing proteins and nucleic acids — opened up the fields of molecular biology, genetics and genomics.”

Sir Paul Nurse, who won the Nobel prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2001, paid tribute to his friend, describing him as “one of the greatest scientists of the 20th. Century”. 

He continued: “We just have to recognise what sort of person we were dealing with here. Only 3 people in a hundred years have won two Nobel prizes for science. Fred was in the company of Madam Curie. He was a powerhouse and we should be so proud of him in Britain.”

To view an excerpt from an interview with Dr. Sanger, click here.

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