Alexander Sergeevich Spirin (1931–2020)
- Center for Molecular Biology of RNA and Department of MCD Biology University of California at Santa Cruz Santa Cruz, California, USA
This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
Alexander Spirin was an exceptional scientist and mentor whose research and thinking about the ribosome was at the forefront of his field throughout his career. He began research in the laboratory of the renowned A.N. Belozersky in the Institute of Biochemistry of the Academy of Science of the USSR and the Department of Plant Biochemistry at Moscow State University in 1955 (Spirin 2009). Already as a graduate student, he discovered that only a small fraction of the total RNA in cells had a base composition similar to that of the cellular DNA (Belozersky and Spirin 1958); this fraction, was, of course, messenger RNA. As Spirin put it (Spirin 2009): “Thus, Belozersky and I found ourselves among the pioneers of messenger RNA studies.” In 1962, when he took over as head of the Institute upon Belozersky's retirement, Spirin began studying mRNA in fish embryos. This work led to the discovery of …
