1877-1955

Canadian-American Bacteriologist and Physician

DNA's role in genetics and heredity was one of the focal points of biological inquiry in the second half of the twentieth century, but through most of the first half of the century there was little interest in this molecule. The person who changed all that was Oswald T. Avery. In 1944, he and his coworkers published evidence that DNA carried genetic information in bacteria, and this research first brought attention to this paper launched a renewed interest and research into DNA.

Avery was born in 1877 in Halifax, in the Canadian Province of Nova Scotia, and several years later, his family emigrated to the United States. Avery graduated from Colgate University in 1900 and then went to medical school at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, graduating in 1904. After a brief period of medical practice and research...