Paul Berg

Paul Berg was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Russian Jewish immigrant parents. He served in the United States Navy during World War II before studying biochemistry at Penn State and Case Western Reserve University. In 1959, he joined the faculty of Stanford University School of Medicine, where he conducted foundational studies on messenger RNA synthesis and protein biosynthesis.

In 1972, Berg successfully spliced DNA from the SV40 monkey virus into the genome of a lambda bacteriophage, creating the first hybrid recombinant DNA molecule in history. Recognizing potential biohazard risks, Berg led an unprecedented voluntary moratorium on recombinant research and organized the 1975 Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA, establishing safety protocols that guided the nascent biotechnology sector. In 1980, Berg was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his fundamental studies of the biochemistry of nucleic acids.