The utility of restriction enzymes

Daniel Nathans and Hamilton Smith, the two shared the Nobel
Prize in 1978 with Werner Arbor "for the discovery of
restriction enzymes and their application to problems
of molecular genetics."
Photo credit: The Baltimore Sun

Restriction enzymes, often called the workhorses of molecular biology, are found in virtually every lab freezer. Without restriction enzymes the human genome wouldn’t have been mapped, the biotechnology industry would be practically nonexistent, and criminal forensics would have never adopted DNA fingerprinting. Nathans and Danna took newly discovered restriction enzymes and showed that they could be used to create specific fragments of simian virus 40 DNA. They also show that these fragments can be separated by size by electrophoresis on a polyacrylamide gel. The combination of restriction digest and gel electrophoresis opened the door for sequencing, molecular cloning, and a whole host of other applications, all from a man who never got a PhD.

• The paper: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC389558/

Historical context of the paper: http://www.pnas.org/content/102/17/5905.full
Some history about Daniel Nathans: http://www.pnas.org/content/102/17/5909.long