Paul Berg (born 1926) is an American biochemist and molecular biologist renowned for his pioneering work in the field of recombinant DNA technology. Born in New York City, Berg studied biochemistry at Penn State University before earning his Ph.D. from Western Reserve University.

In the 1970s, Berg made a groundbreaking discovery when he successfully combined DNA from different organisms to create the first recombinant DNA molecules. This achievement laid the foundation for genetic engineering and the development of techniques for manipulating and studying DNA.

Berg’s work raised important ethical considerations regarding the potential risks associated with genetic engineering, leading to the 1975 Asilomar Conference, where scientists developed guidelines for the safe handling of recombinant DNA.

For his contributions to science, Berg was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1980, recognizing his pioneering efforts in the development of recombinant DNA technology and its applications in biotechnology and medicine. His work continues to have a profound impact on genetics and molecular biology.

Paul Berg Quotes

1. “Novel technologies and ideas that impinge on human biology and their perceived impact on human values have renewed strains in the relationship between science and society.”
— Paul Berg

2. “Looking back, I realize that nurturing curiosity and the instinct to seek solutions are perhaps the most important contributions education can make.”
— Paul Berg

3. “By then, I was making the slow transition from classical biochemistry to molecular biology and becoming increasingly preoccupied with how genes act and how proteins are made.”
— Paul Berg

4. “That work led to the emergence of the recombinant DNA technology thereby providing a major tool for analyzing mammalian gene structure and function and formed the basis for me receiving the 1980 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.”
— Paul Berg

5. “Today, it is research with human embryonic stem cells and attempts to prepare cloned stem cells for research and medical therapies that are being disavowed as being ethically unacceptable.”
— Paul Berg

6. “But the prospects of designing chemical plants for industrial scale chemical processes seemed far less interesting than the chemical events that occur in biological systems.”
— Paul Berg

7. “But I felt it necessary to be part of the war effort and I enlisted in the Navy to be a flyer.”
— Paul Berg

8. “Moreover, the concern of some that moving DNA among species would breach customary breeding barriers and have profound effects on natural evolutionary processes has substantially disappeared as the science revealed that such exchanges occur in nature.”
— Paul Berg

9. “Fears of creating new kinds of plagues or of altering human evolution or of irreversibly altering the environment were only some of the concerns that were rampant.”
— Paul Berg

10. “Paradoxically, no such embargo exists for the drugs and therapies that have revolutionized the treatment of serious diseases although many of them were created with the same technologies.”
— Paul Berg