Monday's Molecule #100

 
This is the 100th edition of Monday's Molecule! Today's "molecule" is a chemical reaction in several steps.

Your task is to identify what's going on and relate it to a single Nobel Laureate.

The first one to correctly identify the molecule and name the Nobel Laureate, wins a free lunch at the Faculty Club. Previous winners are ineligible for one month from the time they first collected the prize. There are four ineligible candidates for this week's reward: Dale Hoyt from Athens, Georgia, Ms. Sandwalk from Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, Alex Ling of the University of Toronto, and Timothy Evans of the University of Pennsylvania. Dale and Ms. Sandwalk have offered to donate the free lunch to a deserving undergraduate so the first two undergraduates to win and collect a free lunch can also invite a friend. Alex gets the first one.

THEME:

Nobel Laureates
Send your guess to Sandwalk (sandwalk (at) bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca) and I'll pick the first email message that correctly identifies the "molecule" and names the Nobel Laureate(s). Note that I'm not going to repeat Nobel Laureate(s) so you might want to check the list of previous Sandwalk postings by clicking on the link in the theme box.

Correct responses will be posted tomorrow. I reserve the right to select multiple winners if several people get it right.

Comments will be blocked for 24 hours. Comments are now open.

UPDATE: The reactions lead to cleavage of DNA at G residues. This is part of the chemical sequencing strategy developed by Maxam and Gilbert in 1976. The Nobel Laureate is Walter Gilbert.

I was surprised at how many old fogies well-established scientists read Sandwalk. We have now produced an entire generation of scientists who will have never experienced this sequencing method but, nevertheless, the correct answers flooded in within a few hours. The first was from John Bothwell of the Marine Biological Association of the UK in Plymouth, UK. Congratulations! Are you free for lunch tomorrow, John, or do you want to take a rain check?

---