J. Heinrich Matthaei

Whilst a post-doctoral visitor in the laboratory of Marshall Warren Nirenberg at the NIH in Bethesda, Maryland, he discovered that a synthetic RNA polynucleotide, composed of a repeating uridylic acid residue (Uracil), coded for a polypeptide chain encoding just one kind of amino acid, phenylalanine. In scientific terms, he discovered that polyU codes for polyphenylalanine and hence the coding unit for this amino acid is composed of a series of Us or, as we now know the genetic code is read in triplets, the codon for phenylalanine is UUU. This single experiment opened the way to the solution of the genetic code. It was for this and later work on the genetic code for which Nirenberg shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology. In addition, Matthaei and his co-workers in the following years published a multitude of results concerning the early understanding of the form and function of the genetic code.[1]

Why Matthaei, who personally deciphered the genetic code, was excluded from this scientific prize is one of the Nobel Prize controversies.

Later, Matthaei was a member of the Max Planck Society in Göttingen as a director.[2]

• Matthaei JH, Nirenberg MW (1961). "Characteristics and stabilization of DNA ase-sensitive protein synthesis in E. coli extracts". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 47 (10): 1580–1588. Bibcode:1961PNAS...47.1580M. doi:10.1073/pnas.47.10.1580. PMC 223177. PMID 14471391.
• Nirenberg MW, Matthaei JH (1961). "The dependence of cell-free protein synthesis in E. coli upon naturally occurring or synthetic polyribonucleotides". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 47 (10): 1588–1602. Bibcode:1961PNAS...47.1588N. doi:10.1073/pnas.47.10.1588. PMC 223178. PMID 14479932.

• Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn
• German inventors and discoverers
• Genetic code