Paul Berg was the first researcher to incorporate DNA from one species into the genetic material of another. In so doing, he invented one of the most powerful tools in modern biology and the basis for a biotechnology industry that is worth hundreds of billions of dollars and has designed therapies for many human diseases.
Berg grew up and was educated in New York City and attended Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn. This was the alma mater of another Nobel laureate,, who later became a long-standing mentor to Berg. Berg’s undergraduate education in biochemistry at the Pennsylvania State University in University Park was interrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War, during which he served in the US Navy. To his disappointment, his passionate wish to become a naval pilot was never realized.
Berg went on to study biochemistry at what is now Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1948. After a postdoc with biochemist Herman Kalckar in Copenhagen, Berg moved to the Department of Microbiology at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, to work with Kornberg. There, he gained international attention for reporting the role of a new intermediate molecule in the metabolism of fatty acids.
The idea was to use the modified SV40 as a viral vector to carry ‘foreign’ genetic material into animal cells. But soon after he initiated his experiments, concerns arose that introducing SV40 genes intoand other common human intestinal bacteria could raise the risk of human cancer. This concern prompted Berg to call a moratorium on all recombinant DNA work in his laboratory until the issue could be explored more thoroughly.
As word spread about what Berg was attempting, elaborate theoretical catastrophic scenarios emerged, including the possible accidental generation of Frankenstein-like monsters — and even interference with natural evolution. Berg and his colleagues responded by convening two meetings at the Asilomar conference centre just south of San Francisco, California.
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