Maxine Singer

Maxine Frank Singer
Born	15 February 1931 (1931-02-15) (age 80) New York City
Citizenship	United States
Fields	Molecular Biology
Doctoral advisor	Joseph Fruton
Known for	Recombinant DNA techniques
Notable awards	National Medal of Science (1992) Public Welfare Medal (2007)

Maxine Frank Singer (born February 15, 1931) is an American molecular biologist and science administrator. She is known for her contributions to solving the genetic code, her role in the ethical and regulatory debates on recombinant DNA techniques (including the organization of the Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA), and her leadership of Carnegie Institution of Washington.

Singer was born in New York City. After attending public high school in Brooklyn, she majored in chemistry (and minored in biology) at Swarthmore College. She went on to earn a Ph.D. in 1957 at Yale University, researching protein chemistry under Joseph Fruton. Fruton encouraged her to specialize in nucleic acids, and in 1956 she joined the Laboratory of Biochemistry of Leon Heppel at the National Institutes of Health. Through her work there on RNA synthesis, Singer produced synthetic nucleotides that were used in Marshall Nirenberg's experiments establishing the triplet nature of the genetic code.

In the wake of the 1973 report of the first use of recombinant DNA techniques to introduce genes from one species into another, Singer was among the first to call attention to the possible risks of genetic engineering. She was a chairperson of the 1973 Gordon Conference on Nucleic Acids, where the possible public health risks of the technique were discussed, and she helped to organize the 1975 Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA that resulted in guidelines for dealing with the largely unknown risks of the technique.

Singer was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1978.^[1] In 1988 She became president of Carnegie Institution of Washington, a position she held until 2002. In 2007 Singer was awarded the Public Welfare Medal from the National Academy of Sciences.^[2]

References

1. ^ "Book of Members, 1780-2010: Chapter S". American Academy of Arts and Sciences. http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterS.pdf. Retrieved 7 April 2011. 
2. ^ "Public Welfare Award". National Academy of Sciences. http://www.nasonline.org/site/PageServer?pagename=AWARDS_pwm. Retrieved 18 February 2011. 

• The Maxine Singer Papers: Biographical Information - Nation Library of Medicine
• Maxine Singer - Carnegie Institution of Washington
• Women in Chemistry: Maxine Singer - Chemical Heritage Foundation

External links

• Maxine Singer papers (1950-2004) - Library of Congress finding aid
• The Maxine Singer Papers - Profiles in Science, National Library of Medicine
• "Why Can't School Science Be More Like Science?" by Maxine Singer - Society for Developmental Biology

Persondata
Name	Singer, Maxine
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	February 15, 1931
Place of birth	New York City
Date of death
Place of death