Molecular biology archives

The National Library of Medicine, a constituent institute of the National Institutes of Health, announces the release of an extensive selection from the papers of Sol Spiegelman (1914-1983), a pioneering molecular biologist whose discoveries helped reveal the mechanisms of gene action and laid the foundations of recombinant DNA technology, on the Profiles in Science website.

In a separate development, the notebooks used by Fred Sanger, Britain's most decorated scientist, to record experiments that won him two Nobel prizes have been saved for the nation, reports the Observer on 5th August . The Wellcome Trust has stepped in to take possession of the books in which Sanger noted down the progress of research that led to his winning a chemistry Nobel prize in 1958 and a second in 1980, a chemistry double that has never been matched. 'Sanger was the father of genome sequencing,' said Clare Matterson of the Wellcome Trust. 'With his notebooks, we now have a clear record of his influences and thought processes. It would have been tragic if these notebooks had ended up outside Britain.'