Erwin Chargoff DNA Austrian Jewish Genetic Scientist Hand Signed Letter Set

CHAU1650 An pair of autographed signed ephemera for Erwin Chargoff who made historic discoveries surrounding DNA and his achievements are listed below.  This comprises two items, an original letter on his official headed paper from New York in 2001 written in German but a local historian can surely translate and personally autographed by him too. It also comes with a 6" x 4"  1980 7" x 5" autograph card too. (please note I have scanned both items together in the scanner so they are laid together but they are two separate items).  The letter is folded in two places where posted (which is how I will send) otherwise both items are mint.  

Erwin Chargaffs research paved the way for the discoveries of DNAs structure and its method of replication.  His observation that DNA varies from species to species made it highly credible that DNA was genetic material. His identification of 1:1 ratios in DNAs bases allowed James Watson and Francis Crick to see how these bases slotted into the double helix and how DNA could act as a template for copies of itself.

The worlds greatest scientific discoveries didnt come overnight. In many cases, hundreds of men laid the groundwork inching closer to a revelation only to watch a single team get credit for the end result. Erwin Chargaff was one of those men, making two discoveries that led James Watson and Francis Crick to the double helix structure of DNA.

At first, Chargaff noticed that DNA whether taken from a plant or animal contained equal amounts of adenine and thymine and equal amounts of cytosine and guanine. These equalities provided clues into the chemical pairings that make up the double helix.  In addition, Chargaff also found that amounts of guanine, cytosine, adenine and thymine vary by species an indication that DNA, not protein, might be the genetic material for life.

Science is wonderfully equipped to answer the question How? Chargaff once said, but it gets terribly confused when you ask the question Why?