Carl Woese

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Carl Woese (July 15, 1928 – December 30, 2012) was an American microbiologist and biophysicist who is most famous for defining the Archaea (a new domain of life), in 1977, by phylogenetic taxonomy of 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA), a technique that has revolutionized microbiology and has had a profound impact on our understanding of the tree of life. Before Woese's discovery, scientists had classified life into two groups: Prokaryotes and Eukaryotes. Woese's identification of the Archaea as a distinct group of organisms changed this view, leading to the now widely accepted three-domain system of classification, which includes Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukarya.

Early Life and Education

Carl Woese was born in Syracuse, New York, and showed an early interest in biology and genetics. He received his bachelor's degree in mathematics and physics from Amherst College in 1950 and went on to complete his Ph.D. in biophysics at Yale University in 1953. After completing his doctorate, Woese worked on the problem of genetic code translation and the properties of nucleic acids at several institutions, including the General Electric Research Laboratory and the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where he would spend the majority of his academic career.

Career and Discoveries

In the early 1970s, Carl Woese and his colleagues began to study the genetic sequences of 16S ribosomal RNA from various organisms. This work was pioneering because it used molecular characteristics to establish evolutionary relationships, rather than relying solely on physical characteristics or the fossil record. In 1977, Woese and his team published a series of papers that outlined their discovery of the Archaea, which they initially called "archaebacteria," showing that these organisms were a distinct form of life, separate from bacteria and eukaryotes.

This discovery was initially met with skepticism but was eventually accepted, leading to the establishment of the three-domain system of life classification. Woese's work has had a lasting impact on the fields of microbiology, evolutionary biology, and systematics, and has led to the discovery of numerous new species and the understanding that the tree of life is much more complex than previously thought.

Legacy

Carl Woese's contributions to science have been recognized with numerous awards and honors, including the National Medal of Science in 2000 and the Crafoord Prize in Biosciences in 2003. He is remembered as a pioneering scientist who changed our understanding of the biological world. Woese passed away on December 30, 2012, but his legacy lives on through the continued exploration and study of life's diversity.

Selected Publications

• Woese, C.R., Kandler, O., and Wheelis, M.L. (1990). Towards a natural system of organisms: Proposal for the domains Archaea, Bacteria, and Eucarya. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 87(12), 4576-4579.
• Woese, C.R. (1987). Bacterial evolution. Microbiological Reviews, 51(2), 221-271.

See Also

• Microbiology
• Evolutionary biology
• Phylogenetics
• Ribosomal RNA
• Three-domain system