118 FIRST STEPS TOWARDS A CHEMISTRY OF HEREDITY 



potential by a deoxypentose nucleic acid, as in the transforming 

 principles. Neither the nucleoprotein nor the nucleic acid can, of 

 course, stand alone; they require the background of complete 

 cellular organization. But at least the first step is indicated to us: 

 we must attempt to read the code of the high polymers, first of 

 all of the nucleic acids and the proteins. That this cannot take the 

 shape of a legerdemain, of clever prestidigitation, is obvious. 

 Little will be gained if the products formed in an uncooked meat 

 extract or in a so-called homogenate are termed biosynthetic. But 

 the search for the chemical structure of the decisive polymers, 

 for the alignment, the sequence of their monomeric components 

 is open to us. 



The sequential analysis of the proteins and the nucleic acids 

 will in itself not be sufficient; the less so, since no nucleoprotein 

 has so far been isolated of which it could be assumed that the 

 protein and nucleic acid moieties of the conjugated protein ex- 

 hibited a direct relationship as of cause and effect. "We are still 

 lacking the Rosetta stone of biochemistry^^" But such studies 

 may indicate the direction that our future efforts are to take. As 

 concerns the proteins, they will be discussed at this congress by 

 more competent voices than could be mine. But since it has come 

 to be that my laboratory has probably been among the first to 

 place the structure of the nucleic acids into the context of modern 

 biochemistry, you will permit me to devote most of the rest of my 

 talk to this subject. 



As I mentioned before, there exists some evidence that the 

 nucleic acids, both the deoxypentose and the pentose nucleic 

 acids, are concerned in the operations that have to do with the 

 selection and the specific arrangement of the constituents of 

 many, if not all, cell-specific polymers, such as proteins, nucleic 

 acids, and perhaps even blood group substances and bacterial 

 and other polysaccharides, etc. What then, could we ask, are the 

 outstanding features that are common to all nucleic acids, but 

 absent from other specific cell substances? This consideration 

 may be of immediate importance for an understanding of the 

 chemical characteristics of the information systems to which I 



