The intersection between the birth of molecular biology and the discovery of DNA repair

Some of the physicists and biologists who contributed to early studies on the nature of the gene employed physical tools such as ionizing and ultraviolet (UV) radiation as experimental tools. The abnormalities of gene function that resulted from these perturbations led some investigators to explore the nature of DNA damage and to the (initially providential) discovery of DNA repair. However, rapid progress in this field through the efforts of molecular biologists conversant with DNA damage and repair was hampered by (among other things) a greater intellectual interest in the nature of DNA replication and the way DNA encoded the formation of proteins. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.