"M" is for Mullis, Kary Banks (b. 1944)

"M" is for Mullis, Kary Banks (b. 1944). Born in North Carolina, Mullis’s family moved to Columbia in 1949. He attended local schools and graduated from Dreher High School. He did his undergraduate work at Georgia Tech and received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of California at Berkeley. Mullis’s impact on the word of biotechnology has been described as no less than revolutionary. In 1983, he conceived and developed the idea of PCR (polymerase chain reaction). This technique amplifies DNA, enabling scientists to make virtually unlimited copies of a single DNA molecule in a short time. Considered by many scientists to be one of the greatest advancements in molecular biology, Kary Banks Mullis’s work on PCR garnered him a share of the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1993 in recognition of his milestone discovery.