12 Facts About Phoebus Levene

Phoebus Aaron Theodore Levene was a Russian-born American biochemist who studied the structure and function of nucleic acids.

Phoebus Levene characterized the different forms of nucleic acid, DNA from RNA, and found that DNA contained adenine, guanine, thymine, cytosine, deoxyribose, and a phosphate group.

Phoebus Levene was born into a Litvak family as Fishel Aronovich Levin in the town of Zagare in Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire, but grew up in St Petersburg.

In 1905, Phoebus Levene was appointed as head of the biochemical laboratory at the Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research.

Phoebus Levene spent the rest of his career at this institute, and it was there that he identified the components of DNA.

Not only did Phoebus Levene identify the components of DNA, he showed that the components were linked together in the order phosphate-sugar-base to form units.

Phoebus Levene called each of these units a nucleotide, and stated that the DNA molecule consisted of a string of nucleotide units linked together through the phosphate groups, which are the 'backbone' of the molecule.

Phoebus Levene even declared that it could not store the genetic code because it was chemically far too simple.

Phoebus Levene published over 700 original papers and articles on biochemical structures.

Phoebus Levene died in 1940, before the true significance of DNA became clear.

Phoebus Levene is known for his tetranucleotide hypothesis which proposed that DNA was made up of equal amounts of adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine.

Phoebus Levene was an elected member of both the United States National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.