Kary Mullis
| Kary Mullis | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
December 28, 1944 Lenoir, North Carolina, United States |
| Fields | Molecular biology |
| Alma mater |
Georgia Institute of Technology (BS, 1966) University of California, Berkeley (PhD, 1973) |
| Thesis | Schizokinen: structure and synthetic work (1973) |
| Doctoral advisor | J.B. Neilands |
| Known for | Invention of polymerase chain reaction |
| Notable awards |
William Allan Award (1990) |
William Allan Award (1990)
Robert Koch Prize (1992)
Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1993)
Japan Prize (1993)
Kary Banks Mullis (born December 28, 1944) is a Nobel Prize-winning American biochemist, author, and lecturer. In recognition of his improvement of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique, he shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Michael Smith and earned the Japan Prize in the same year. The process was first described by Kjell Kleppe and 1968 Nobel laureate H. Gobind Khorana, and allows the amplification of specific DNA sequences. The improvements made by Mullis allowed PCR to become a central technique in biochemistry and molecular biology, described by The New York Times as "highly original and significant, virtually dividing biology into the two epochs of before P.C.R. and after P.C.R."
He has defended AIDS denialism, and climate change denial. He is also known for his unorthodox views on social sciences and astrology. All of these stances drew him criticism from The New York Times.
Mullis was born in Lenoir, North Carolina, near the Blue Ridge Mountains, on December 28, 1944. His family had a background in farming in this rural area. As a child, Mullis recalls, he was interested in observing organisms in the countryside. He grew up in Columbia, South Carolina, where he attended Dreher High School. He has described his early interest in chemistry, and claims to have learned how to chemically synthesize and build solid state fuel propulsion rockets as a high school student during the 1950s.
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