Martha Chase
Martha Cowles Chase was a notable American biologist born on November 30, 1927, in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. She earned her bachelor's degree in biology from the College of Wooster in 1950 and went on to work as a lab assistant to renowned bacteriologist Alfred Day Hershey at the Carnegie Institution Department of Genetics. Chase played a key role in the groundbreaking Hershey-Chase experiment in 1952, which provided crucial evidence that DNA, rather than proteins, carries genetic information, significantly advancing the field of genetics.
Chase's academic journey included time at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Rochester, where she coauthored research papers on genetic structure. She pursued a PhD in microbial physiology from the University of California, obtaining her degree in 1964. Throughout her career, Chase faced challenges common for women in science during her time but earned respect from her peers, including Hershey, who acknowledged her contributions as a coauthor. Unfortunately, her career was cut short by health issues, and she passed away in 2003 due to complications from pneumonia. Chase’s work laid foundational insights into molecular biology, contributing to the understanding of DNA and the development of genetic engineering.
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Martha Chase
American biologist
- Born: November 30, 1927; Cleveland Heights, Ohio
- Died: August 8, 2003; Lorain, Ohio
A new college graduate working at Cold Spring Harbor, Martha Chase aided geneticist Alfred Hershey in discovering that viruses replicate through DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). The work led to Watson and Crick’s helix model of DNA less than a year later.
Also known as: Martha Chase Epstein; Martha Cowles Chase
Primary field: Biology
Specialty: Genetics
Early Life
Martha Cowles Chase was born on November 30, 1927 in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. At the College of Wooster (Ohio), she earned a bachelor’s degree in biology in 1950.
Life’s Work
Following her commencement, Chase worked as a lab assistant to bacteriologist and genetics expert Alfred Day Hershey at the Carnegie Institution Department of Genetics (now Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) in Cold Spring Harbor, New York. In 1952, she assisted Hershey in what has become known as the Hershey-Chase blender experiment. By using the centrifugal force created by a common kitchen blender, the pair was able to demonstrate that viruses used DNA, not proteins, to replicate and to synthesize protein. This experiment confirmed that DNA was the chemical responsible for genetic inheritance. By one account, Chase was not at the time fully aware of the significance of the experiment.
Chase later worked at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory with biologist A. H. Doermann. While at Oak Ridge, she was one of only a few women who attended the 1953 Cold Spring Harbor Symposium on Quantitative Biology, which focused on viruses and during which molecular biologist James Watson was the first to publicly describe the correct structure of DNA. During the 1950s while at the University of Rochester’s Biology Department, she and Doermann coauthored several papers related to genetic structure.
Chase left the University of Rochester in 1959 to pursue a PhD in microbial physiology. She attended the University of California, obtaining her doctoral degree in 1964. For a brief period in the late 1950s, Chase was married to Richard Epstein, a virologist.
Chase suffered from short-term memory loss and dementia, which cut short her career. She died in northern Ohio in 2003, from complications of pneumonia.
Impact
The blender experiment built on work that had been ongoing at Cold Spring Harbor for several years. Max Delbrück, Salvador Luria, and Alfred Hershey worked to put biology on the same experimental plane that physics was enjoying at the time. In 1950, Hershey left his teaching position at Vanderbilt University to accept a full-time appointment as researcher at Cold Spring Harbor, where he remained for the next twenty years. In 1969, the three shared the Nobel Prize.
Hershey and Chase’s contributions were one link in the discovery that genes were made of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Linus Pauling and Rosalind Franklin took other steps that allowed James Watson and Francis Crick to develop a structural model of DNA, for which they were awarded a Nobel Prize in 1962. The understanding of DNA’s components allowed the fields of molecular biology and genetic engineering to grow.
Chase was one of few women scientists at a time when women were regarded primarily as homemakers. Her quest for knowledge, both in the classroom and in the laboratory, gained her the respect of male colleagues. By acknowledging her as coauthor of their research, Hershey was making a strong statement about his respect for her as a scientist.
Bibliography
Dawson, Milly. “Martha Chase Dies.” Genome Biology 4 (2003): n. pag. Print. Obituary gives details on Chase’s personal and professional life.
Shmaefsky, Brian Robert. Biotechnology 101. Westport: Greenwood, 2006. Print. Includes a brief biography of Chase in the “Principle People of Biotechnology” section. Print. Glossary, references, index.
Stahl, Franklin W., ed. We Can Sleep Later: Alfred D. Hershey and the Origins of Molecular Biology. Cold Spring Harbor: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory P, 2000. Print. Reminiscences and essays by Hershey and the scientists who knew him. Contains some technical materials on Hershey’s research, including the Chase-Hershey article that explained the experiment. Name and subject index.