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Meselson, Matthew, 1930-

 Person

Biography

Matthew Stanley Meselson, born May 24, 1930 in Denver, Colorado, is a geneticist and molecular biologist currently at Harvard University. He received the Ph.B. degree in liberal arts from the University of Chicago in 1951 and his Ph.D. in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology in 1957. Working under his doctoral advisor Linus Pauling and using X-ray crystallography, his 1957 thesis was titled I. Equilibrium sedimentation of macromolecules in density gradients with application to the study of deoxyribonucleic acid. II. The crystal structure of N,N-dimethyl malonamide. He was a Research Fellow and Assistant Professor of Physical Chemistry at Caltech until joining the Harvard faculty in 1960.

While at Caltech, he invented the equilibrium density-gradient centrifugation method in order to identify and analyze the densities of giant molecules. Along with his colleague Franklin Stahl, this new ultracentrifugal method was then used to test hypotheses of how DNA replications and eventually demonstrated the semi-conservative replication of DNA molecules in 1958. Upon replication, the two complementary strands of the bacterial DNA separate and each single parent strand directs the synthesis of a new daughter strand. The results of this experiment verified the suggestion first put forward by James Watson and Francis Crick five years earlier, lending important early support for the Watson-Crick model of the DNA molecule. Working with Sydney Brenner and François Jacob, the density gradient method was also used to demonstrate the existence of messenger RNA.

At Harvard, Meselson, along with his students, demonstrated the enzymatic basis of host-controlled restriction of DNA, predicted and then discovered methyl-directed repair of mismatched DNA, and detected homologuous DNA exchanges within bdelloid rotifer populations. Other research includes sequencing Drosophila with a focus on heat-shock proteins.

Dr. Meselson also has an interest in arms control, specifically regarding biological and chemical weapons and in anti-CBW protection. He has acted as a consultant to various government agencies regarding these subjects. In August and September 1970, Meselson led a team in the Republic of Vietnam in a pilot study of the ecological and health effects of military use of herbicides. In 1983, along with Thomas Seeley, Dr. Meselson went to Thailand in order to conduct a field study of “yellow rain,” which was initially feared to be a toxic weapon but shown by Meselson to be non-toxic feces dropped by swarms of the giant Asian honeybee Apis dorsata. In 2002 and 2003, he led a team to Sverdlovsk (now Yeketerinburg), Russia, to investigate outbreaks of human and animal anthrax in 1979.

He is the Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences at Harvard University and Co-director of the Harvard Sussex Program on Chemical and Biological Weapons.

Found in 55 Collections and/or Records:

Letter from Sydney Brenner to Matthew Meselson #1, 7/5/1960

 Item — Box CP01, Folder: 24
Identifier: SB_01_01_0415_001
Scope and Contents From the Series: The Correspondence series consists of incoming and outgoing handwritten and typed letters, carbons, postcards, faxes, and telegrams generated during Sydney Brenner's career. The bulk of this series covers the late 1940s to the 2000s. Correspondents include over 30 Nobel laureates, as well as biochemists, geneticists, students, publishers, and others. Highlights of the collection include the correspondence from Francis Crick, with whom Brenner shared an office for 20 years. Topics covered...
Dates: 7/5/1960
Found in: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Archives / Sydney Brenner Collection / Record Group I / Series I: Correspondence (SB/1) / Sub-Series I: Correspondence - Personal (SB/1/1) / Meselson, Matthew

Letter from Sydney Brenner to Matthew Meselson #2, 22/08/1975

 Item — Box CP06, Folder: 33
Identifier: SB_01_01_0256_005
Scope and Contents From the Series: The Correspondence series consists of incoming and outgoing handwritten and typed letters, carbons, postcards, faxes, and telegrams generated during Sydney Brenner's career. The bulk of this series covers the late 1940s to the 2000s. Correspondents include over 30 Nobel laureates, as well as biochemists, geneticists, students, publishers, and others. Highlights of the collection include the correspondence from Francis Crick, with whom Brenner shared an office for 20 years. Topics covered...
Dates: 22/08/1975
Found in: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Archives / Sydney Brenner Collection / Record Group I / Series I: Correspondence (SB/1) / Sub-Series I: Correspondence - Personal (SB/1/1) / Harvard University - Dept. of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (Includes Konrad Bloch, Paul Doty, Matt Meselson, and Mark Ptashne)

Letter from Sydney Brenner to Matthew Meselson #2, 26/10/1959

 Item — Box CP01, Folder: 24
Identifier: SB_01_01_0415_005
Scope and Contents From the Series: The Correspondence series consists of incoming and outgoing handwritten and typed letters, carbons, postcards, faxes, and telegrams generated during Sydney Brenner's career. The bulk of this series covers the late 1940s to the 2000s. Correspondents include over 30 Nobel laureates, as well as biochemists, geneticists, students, publishers, and others. Highlights of the collection include the correspondence from Francis Crick, with whom Brenner shared an office for 20 years. Topics covered...
Dates: 26/10/1959
Found in: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Archives / Sydney Brenner Collection / Record Group I / Series I: Correspondence (SB/1) / Sub-Series I: Correspondence - Personal (SB/1/1) / Meselson, Matthew

Letter from Sydney Brenner to Matthew Meselson #3, 18/02/1958

 Item — Box CP01, Folder: 24
Identifier: SB_01_01_0415_006
Scope and Contents From the Series: The Correspondence series consists of incoming and outgoing handwritten and typed letters, carbons, postcards, faxes, and telegrams generated during Sydney Brenner's career. The bulk of this series covers the late 1940s to the 2000s. Correspondents include over 30 Nobel laureates, as well as biochemists, geneticists, students, publishers, and others. Highlights of the collection include the correspondence from Francis Crick, with whom Brenner shared an office for 20 years. Topics covered...
Dates: 18/02/1958
Found in: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Archives / Sydney Brenner Collection / Record Group I / Series I: Correspondence (SB/1) / Sub-Series I: Correspondence - Personal (SB/1/1) / Meselson, Matthew

Letter from Sydney Brenner to Matthew Meselson #4, 29/10/1958

 Item — Box CP01, Folder: 24
Identifier: SB_01_01_0415_008
Scope and Contents From the Series: The Correspondence series consists of incoming and outgoing handwritten and typed letters, carbons, postcards, faxes, and telegrams generated during Sydney Brenner's career. The bulk of this series covers the late 1940s to the 2000s. Correspondents include over 30 Nobel laureates, as well as biochemists, geneticists, students, publishers, and others. Highlights of the collection include the correspondence from Francis Crick, with whom Brenner shared an office for 20 years. Topics covered...
Dates: 29/10/1958
Found in: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Archives / Sydney Brenner Collection / Record Group I / Series I: Correspondence (SB/1) / Sub-Series I: Correspondence - Personal (SB/1/1) / Meselson, Matthew

Letter from Sydney Brenner to Matthew Meselson #5, 12/11/1958

 Item — Box CP01, Folder: 24
Identifier: SB_01_01_0415_010
Scope and Contents From the Series: The Correspondence series consists of incoming and outgoing handwritten and typed letters, carbons, postcards, faxes, and telegrams generated during Sydney Brenner's career. The bulk of this series covers the late 1940s to the 2000s. Correspondents include over 30 Nobel laureates, as well as biochemists, geneticists, students, publishers, and others. Highlights of the collection include the correspondence from Francis Crick, with whom Brenner shared an office for 20 years. Topics covered...
Dates: 12/11/1958
Found in: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Archives / Sydney Brenner Collection / Record Group I / Series I: Correspondence (SB/1) / Sub-Series I: Correspondence - Personal (SB/1/1) / Meselson, Matthew

Letter from Sydney Brenner to Matthew Meselson #6, 15/01/1960

 Item — Box CP01, Folder: 24
Identifier: SB_01_01_0415_011
Scope and Contents From the Series: The Correspondence series consists of incoming and outgoing handwritten and typed letters, carbons, postcards, faxes, and telegrams generated during Sydney Brenner's career. The bulk of this series covers the late 1940s to the 2000s. Correspondents include over 30 Nobel laureates, as well as biochemists, geneticists, students, publishers, and others. Highlights of the collection include the correspondence from Francis Crick, with whom Brenner shared an office for 20 years. Topics covered...
Dates: 15/01/1960
Found in: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Archives / Sydney Brenner Collection / Record Group I / Series I: Correspondence (SB/1) / Sub-Series I: Correspondence - Personal (SB/1/1) / Meselson, Matthew

Letter from Sydney Brenner to Matthew Meselson #7, 1/12/1965

 Item — Box CP01, Folder: 24
Identifier: SB_01_01_0415_040
Scope and Contents From the Series: The Correspondence series consists of incoming and outgoing handwritten and typed letters, carbons, postcards, faxes, and telegrams generated during Sydney Brenner's career. The bulk of this series covers the late 1940s to the 2000s. Correspondents include over 30 Nobel laureates, as well as biochemists, geneticists, students, publishers, and others. Highlights of the collection include the correspondence from Francis Crick, with whom Brenner shared an office for 20 years. Topics covered...
Dates: 1/12/1965
Found in: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Archives / Sydney Brenner Collection / Record Group I / Series I: Correspondence (SB/1) / Sub-Series I: Correspondence - Personal (SB/1/1) / Meselson, Matthew

M, 1910 - 1968

 File — Box 56, Folder: 3
Scope and Content From the Collection: The Elof Carlson Collection is comprised of personal and professional material accrued by Dr. Carlson primarily during his professional academic career from 1958-2000. Professionally, Dr. Carlson was a professor, a geneticist, and a historian of genetics and the materials reflect these interests. The collection includes course notebooks, lecture notes and teaching files, scientific papers, correspondence, photographs, personal diaries, memorabilia, clippings, and material related to Dr....
Dates: 1910 - 1968
Found in: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Archives / Elof Carlson Collection / Record Group I: Personal Papers / Series VII: Reprints / Sub-Series IV: Other Reprints

Matthew Meselson, 2002-07-17

 Item — Multiple Containers
Scope and Contents Matthew Meselson, geneticist and molecular biologist, is interviewed by Mila Pollock at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on July 17, 2002.Matt Meselson talks about his scientific pursuits as a youth, his undergraduate years at the University of Chicago and Caltech, and his work with Linus Pauling as a graduate student in chemistry at Caltech in the early 1950s, including his work on density gradient centrifugation. He recounts how his auspicious relationship with...
Dates: 2002-07-17
Found in: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Archives / Oral History Collection / Talking Science Interviews

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Archival Object 51
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Subject
Bacteriophages 19
Experiments 12
DNA 11
Sample requests 5
RNA 4
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Travel 4
Manuscripts as Topic 3
Molecular Biology 3
Mutagenesis 3
Science Study and teaching 3
Thymine 3
Bacteriophage T4 2
Cambridge (England) 2
Cambridge (Mass.) 2
Centrifugation, Density gradient 2
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory 2
DNA Replication 2
DNA--Structure 2
Human Genome Project 2
Nobel Prizes 2
Ribosomes 2
X-ray crystallography 2
Adenoviruses 1
Agent Orange 1
Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA Molecules. 1
Bacterial genetics 1
Bacteriophage T7 1
Banbury Center 1
Base Sequencing 1
Biochemistry 1
Biological weapons 1
Biotechnology 1
Biotechnology Patents 1
Bloomington (Ind.) 1
Caenorhabditis elegans 1
Cancer 1
Cancer--Research 1
Chemical warfare -- Research -- United States -- History -- 20th century 1
Chemistry 1
Chicago (Ill.) 1
Clippings (information artifacts) 1
Cold Spring Harbor (N.Y.) 1
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Press 1
Cold Spring Harbor Symposium on Quantitative Biology 1
Communication in science 1
Copenhagen (Denmark) 1
Correspondence 1
Drosophila 1
Drosophila Genetics 1
Education 1
Ekaterinburg (Russia) 1
Employment 1
Escherichia coli 1
Genetic Code 1
Genetic Engineering 1
Genetics 1
Genomics 1
Herbicides--War use 1
Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam) 1
Housing 1
Human Genome Mapping Project 1
Human Genome Project--Economic aspects--United States. 1
Human Genome Project--Moral and ethical aspects 1
Human Genome--Patents 1
Human genome 1
Human genome--Congresses. 1
Invitations 1
Isotopes 1
John F. Kennedy School of Government. Center for Science and International Affairs. 1
Laboratory Notes 1
Laos 1
Laurel Hollow (N.Y.) 1
Lectures and lecturing 1
Long Island (N.Y.) 1
Manuscripts (document genre) 1
Neurobiology 1
Nobel Prize winners 1
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Nucleic acid hybridization 1
Operation Ranch Hand, 1962-1971 1
Peer Review 1
Photographs 1
Plasmids 1
Politics 1
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 1
Proteins--Synthesis 1
Proteus mirabilis 1
Purines 1
RNA-Directed DNA Polymerase 1
Recombinant DNA 1
Reprints 1
Research 1
Restriction enzymes, DNA 1
Retroviruses 1
SV40 (Virus) 1
Sabbatical leave 1
Science--Patents 1
Sequence Analysis, DNA 1
Tobacco Mosaic Virus 1
Travel costs 1
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