Rudolf Signer (17 March 1903,

Herisau Herisau is a municipalities of Switzerland, municipality and the capital of the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden in Switzerland. It is the seat of the canton's government and parliament; the judicial authorities are situated ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

– 1 December 1990, Gümlingen,

) contributed to the discovery of the

DNA Deoxyribonucleic acid (; DNA) is a polymer composed of two polynucleotide chains that coil around each other to form a double helix. The polymer carries genetic instructions for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of al ...

double helix In molecular biology, the term double helix refers to the structure formed by base pair, double-stranded molecules of nucleic acids such as DNA. The double Helix, helical structure of a nucleic acid complex arises as a consequence of its Nuclei ...

. He was a Professor for

organic chemistry Organic chemistry is a subdiscipline within chemistry involving the science, scientific study of the structure, properties, and reactions of organic compounds and organic matter, organic materials, i.e., matter in its various forms that contain ...

at the

University of Bern The University of Bern (, , ) is a public university, public research university in the Switzerland, Swiss capital of Bern. It was founded in 1834. It is regulated and financed by the canton of Bern. It is a comprehensive university offering a br ...

from 1935 until 1972.

Education

Signer was the son of Jakob Signer, a chemical scientist working in the textile industry, and his wife Dorothea Agnes Scherrer. Rudolf Signer went to high school in St. Gallen and matriculated at the

ETH Zurich ETH Zurich (; ) is a public university in Zurich, Switzerland. Founded in 1854 with the stated mission to educate engineers and scientists, the university focuses primarily on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. ETH Zurich ran ...

in 1921 to study chemistry, initially in order to become a teacher. 1927 he graduated with his doctorate under the supervision of

Hermann Staudinger Hermann Staudinger (; 23 March 1881 – 8 September 1965) was a German organic chemist who demonstrated the existence of macromolecules, which he characterized as polymers. For this work he received the 1953 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He is also ...

. Already 1926 he had become '' Wissenschaftlicher Assistent'' at the

University of Fribourg The University of Fribourg (; ) is a public university located in Fribourg, Switzerland. The roots of the university can be traced back to 1580, when the notable Jesuit Peter Canisius founded the Collège Saint-Michel in the City of Fribourg ...

, where he qualified as a professor with a

Habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...

Career

Signer spent 1932–1933 in

Uppsala Uppsala ( ; ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the capital of Uppsala County and the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inhabitants in 2019. Loc ...

and

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

on a Rockefeller-scholarship. He became a non-tenured professor for general and

inorganic chemistry Inorganic chemistry deals with chemical synthesis, synthesis and behavior of inorganic compound, inorganic and organometallic chemistry, organometallic compounds. This field covers chemical compounds that are not carbon-based, which are the subj ...

at the

in 1935 and was tenured in 1939. He went on to become director of the university's Institute of Chemistry and retired as

emeritus ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". In some c ...

in 1972.

Research

Signer focused on macromolecular chemistry, in particular with regards to

natural products A natural product is a natural compound or substance produced by a living organism—that is, found in nature. In the broadest sense, natural products include any substance produced by life. Natural products can also be prepared by chemical s ...

. In 1938 he measured and described the properties of

, discovering its thread-like structure. In 1950 Signer produced extraordinarily pure DNA from the

thymus The thymus (: thymuses or thymi) is a specialized primary lymphoid organ of the immune system. Within the thymus, T cells mature. T cells are critical to the adaptive immune system, where the body adapts to specific foreign invaders. The thymus ...

of calves, of which he took 15 grams of extraordinarily pure DNA to London. In England he gave it to various scientists, among them

Maurice Wilkins Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins (15 December 1916 – 5 October 2004) was a New Zealand-born British biophysicist and Nobel laureate whose research spanned multiple areas of physics and biophysics, contributing to the scientific understanding ...

, in order to promote research in the field. The analysis of

X-ray An X-ray (also known in many languages as Röntgen radiation) is a form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than those of ultraviolet rays and longer than those of gamma rays. Roughly, X-rays have a wavelength ran ...

images of these DNA samples, especially

Photo 51 ' ''Photo 51'' is an X-ray diffraction, X-ray based fiber diffraction image of a paracrystalline gel composed of DNA fiber taken by Raymond Gosling, a postgraduate student working under the supervision of Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin ...

Rosalind Franklin Rosalind Elsie Franklin (25 July 192016 April 1958) was a British chemist and X-ray crystallographer. Her work was central to the understanding of the molecular structures of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), RNA (ribonucleic acid), viruses, coal ...

, allowed

James Watson James Dewey Watson (born April 6, 1928) is an American molecular biology, molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist. In 1953, he co-authored with Francis Crick the academic paper in ''Nature (journal), Nature'' proposing the Nucleic acid ...

and

Francis Crick Francis Harry Compton Crick (8 June 1916 – 28 July 2004) was an English molecular biologist, biophysicist, and neuroscientist. He, James Watson, Rosalind Franklin, and Maurice Wilkins played crucial roles in deciphering the Nucleic acid doub ...

to discover the

double-helix In molecular biology, the term double helix refers to the structure formed by double-stranded molecules of nucleic acids such as DNA. The double helical structure of a nucleic acid complex arises as a consequence of its secondary structure, a ...

structure of DNA. The remainder of the DNA which Signer brought to England survive today in the collection of

King's College, London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public university, public research university in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV ...

. Over 250 of Signer's scientific writings were published during his lifetime. The Lavoisier Medal was awarded to him for his scientific work and achievements.

References

External links

* * 1903 births 1990 deaths Swiss chemists ETH Zurich alumni {{biologist-stub