- US biochemist
who was the first to isolate transfer RNA (tRNA), a nucleic acid that
plays an essential part in intracellular protein synthesis.
Hoagland was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He studied at Harvard University
Medical School, and worked there 1953-67. In 1967, he was appointed
professor at Dartmouth Medical School and scientific director of the
Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts.
In the late 1950s Hoagland isolated various types of tRNA molecules
from cytoplasm and demonstrated that each type of tRNA can combine with
only one specific amino acid. Each tRNA molecule has as part of its
structure a characteristic triplet of nitrogenous bases that links to
a complementary triplet on a messenger RNA (mRNA) molecule. A number
of these reactions occur on the ribosome, building up a protein one
amino acid at a time.
Hoagland has also investigated the carcinogenic effects of beryllium
and the biosynthesis of coenzyme A.
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