13/06/2018
DNA was discovered in 1869 by Frederick Miescher, who was then 25 years old.
Miescher was the son of a well-known physician in Basel. In 1869 he had gone to Tubingen to study the chemistry of white blood cells with the biochemist F. Hoppe-Seyler. He used pus obtained from postoperative bandages, as a source of the cells. When he added weak hydrochloric acid to the pus he obtained pure nuclei. If he added alkali and then acid to the nuclei a gray precipitate was formed. The precipitate was unlike any of the known organic substances. Since it came from the nucleus, Miescher called it nuclein. Today it is called DNA.