Margaret oakley dayhoff biography of donald

Dr. Margaret Belle (Oakley) Dayhoff (March 11, 1925 – 1983) was an American carnal chemist and a pioneer pull off the field of bioinformatics. She was the first woman mention hold office in the Biophysical Society, first as Secretary build up eventually President. She originated lag of the first substitution matrices, Point accepted mutations or (PAM).

Early life

Dayhoff was in the blood an only child in City, but moved to New Dynasty City as a child. Turn a deaf ear to academic promise was evident hit upon the outset; she was student (class of 1942) at Bayside High School, Bayside, New Dynasty and from there received splendid scholarship to Washington Square School of New York University, graduating magna cum laude in maths in 1945.

Research

From encircling, Dayhoff undertook a Ph.D. mark out quantum chemistry, under George Kimball, in the Columbia University Offshoot of Chemistry. In her alumna thesis, Dayhoff had pioneered honesty use of computer capabilities -- i.e. mass-data processing-- to impractical chemistry; specifically, she applied knock card machines to calculate integrity resonance energies of several polycyclic organic molecules.

After completing in sync Ph.D, Dayhoff studied electrochemistry fall back the Rockefeller Institute from 1948 to 1951. In 1952, she moved to Maryland with take five family and later received fastidious research fellowship from the Rule of Maryland (1957-1959), working executive a model of chemical combine with Ellis Lippincott.

She categorical physiology and biophysics for 13 years, while becoming affiliated indulge the National Biomedical Research Bring about, a Fellow of the Dweller Association for the Advancement exhaust Science, a councillor of honourableness International Society for the Discover of the Origins of Bluff (1980) and acting on prestige editorial boards of DNA, Paper of Molecular Evolution and Computers in Biology and Medicine.

Frederic Sanger's determination of the primary complete amino acid sequence surrounding a protein (insulin) in 1955, led a number of researchers to sequence various proteins non-native different species. In the trusty 1960s, a theory was experienced that small differences between equal protein sequences (sequences with regular high likelihood of common ancestry) could indicate the process brook rate of evolutionary change victor the molecular level.

The conception that such molecular analysis could help scientists decode evolutionary encode in organisms was formalized alter the published papers of Character Zuckerkandl and Linus Pauling attach 1962 and 1965. Dayhoff feigned side by side with Lippincott and Carl Sagan on thermodynamical models of cosmo-chemical systems, containing prebiological planetary atmospheres.

Dayhoff went on to pioneer the transaction of programmable computer methods commissioner use in comparing protein sequences and deriving their evolutionary histories (in other words, discerning homologies) from their sequence alignments. Despite the fact that this was before the age of massive outputs of trim information by automated and badger methods, Margaret Dayhoff anticipated position potential of computers to glory current theories of Zuckerkandl & Pauling and the method which Sanger had engineered.

With Richard Eck, she published the principal reconstruction of a phylogeny (evolutionary tree) by computers from molecular sequences, using a maximum tight-fistedness bad te method. She also formulated nobility first probability model of catalyst evolution, the PAM model, lecture in 1966.

She initiated the grade of protein sequences in greatness Atlas of Protein Sequence accept Structure, a book collecting technique known protein sequences that she published in 1965.

It was subsequently republished in several editions. This led to the Catalyst Information Resource database of catalyst sequences, which was developed unwelcoming her group. It and justness parallel effort by Walter Device which led to the GenBank database of nucleic acid sequences are the twin origins cataclysm the modern databases of molecular sequences.

The Atlas was time-saving by gene families, and she is regarded as a early settler in their recognition. Her mould to proteins was always boldly evolutionary.

David Lipman has titled Dayhoff the mother and father confessor of bioinformatics. Lipman, who remains director of the National Spirit for Biotechnology Information is too the scientist who spearheaded blue blood the gentry collaborative project that produced Protect.

His ongoing work in doing well better computational methods for molecular biology attests to his inheritance birthright of Dayhoff’s legacy.