Charles Yanofsky was an American geneticist on the faculty of Stanford University who contributed to the establishment of the one gene-one enzyme hypothesis and discovered attenuation, a riboswitch mechanism in which messenger RNA changes shape in response to a small molecule and thus alters its binding ability for the regulatory region of a gene or operon.
11 Facts About Charles Yanofsky
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Charles Yanofsky was born on April 17,1925, in New York.
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Charles Yanofsky was one of the earliest graduates of the Bronx High School of Science, then studied at the City College of New York and completed his degree in biochemistry in spite of having had his education interrupted by military service in World War II including participation in the Battle of the Bulge.
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Charles Yanofsky pursued postdoctoral work at Yale for a time, completing work started during his PhD training.
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Charles Yanofsky moved to the faculty at Stanford University as an Associate Professor in 1958.
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Charles Yanofsky showed that changes in DNA sequence can produce changes in protein sequence at corresponding positions.
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Charles Yanofsky's work is considered the best evidence in favor of the one gene-one enzyme hypothesis.
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Charles Yanofsky's laboratory revealed how controlled alterations in RNA shapes allow RNA to serve as a regulatory molecule in both bacterial and animal cells.
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Charles Yanofsky was survived by his second wife, Edna, and three sons.
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Charles Yanofsky received the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award, sometimes referred to as the American Nobel prize, in 1971.
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Charles Yanofsky was elected a foreign member of the Royal Society in 1985 and was one of the recipients of the 2003 National Medal of Science awards.