In this entertaining account of the origins of modern molecular biology, the lives of pioneering scientists in the field of nucleic acid research, and the discovery of DNA, Ulf Lagerkvist speaks not only to scientists but to all students and general readers with an interest in science. The author, whose career in the nucleic acid field began in the late 1940s, recreates historical episodes from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and introduces for a modern audience the scientists whose discoveries revolutionized the field of biology. Knowledge of these pioneers as professionals and as human beings, Lagerkvist believes, may help us see modern problems in a new light and appreciate the greatness of the researchers who contributed to the foundations of molecular biology and biochemistry. Among these scientific pioneers was nineteenth-century biochemist Friedrich Miescher, discoverer of nuclein, the material now known as DNA. The book also explores early research into general problems of the chemistry of biological materials. Lagerkvist vividly describes the research of such influential scientists as Albrecht Kossel, another early leading figure; Emil Fischer, who received the Nobel Prize in 1902 for his work on carbohydrates and purines and was regarded as the foremost chemist of his time; P. A. Levene, known for his discoveries concerning the structure of nucleotides and the way these nucleic acid building blocks are linked to one another; and Oswald T. Avery, often considered the grandfather of molecular genetics.

In a relatively brief but masterful recounting, Professor Ulf Lagerkvist traces the origins and seminal developments in the field of chemistry, highlighting the discoveries and personalities of the individuals who transformed the ancient myths of the Greeks, the musings of the alchemists, the mystique of phlogiston into the realities and the laws governing the properties and behavior of the elements; in short, how chemistry became a true science. A centerpiece of this historical journey was the triumph by Dmitri Mendeleev who conceived the Periodic Law of the Elements, the relation between the properties of the elements and their atomic weights but more precisely their atomic number. Aside from providing order to the elements known at the time, the law predicted the existence and atomic order of elements not then known but were discovered soon after. An underlying but explicit intent of Lagerkvist's survey is to address what he believes was a gross injustice in denying Mendeleev the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1905 and again in 1906. Delving into the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences' detailed records concerning the nominations, Lagerkvist reveals the judging criteria and the often heated and prejudicial arguments favoring and demeaning the contributions of the competing contenders of those years. Lagerkvist, who was a member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences and has participated in judging nominations for the chemistry prize, concludes: It is in the nature of the Nobel Prize that there will always be a number candidates who obviously deserve to be rewarded but never get the accolade--Mendeleev was one of those.