Nathans, Daniel (1928– )

US microbiologist who was awarded a Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1978 with his colleague Hamilton Smith for their discovery of restriction enzymes (enzymes that can cleave genes into fragments) and their application to molecular genetics.

Born in Wilmington, Delaware, Nathans studied at the University of Delaware and at Washington University, St Louis, Missouri. From 1962 he worked at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, becoming director of the department of microbiology in 1972.

In addition to the work done with Smith, Nathans also performed much original research of his own in this field. Using the carcinogenic SV40 virus, he showed in 1971 that it could be cleaved into 11 specific fragments, and in the following year he determined the order of these fragments.