A history of the DNA repair and mutagenesis field: I. The discovery of enzymatic photoreactivation

Photoreactivation, an enzyme-catalyzed reaction during which two covalently linked pyrimidine dimers in DNA are monomerized and restored to their native conformation was the first DNA repair mechanism to be discovered, an event that transpired in the late 1940’s through the efforts of the American biologist Albert Kelner while at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories in upstate New York. The phenomenon was Independently observed by Renato Dulbecco shortly thereafter, then a post-doctoral fellow in Salvador Luria’s Laboratory in Bloomington Indiana. However, Luria and Dulbecco yielded priority to Kelner’s discovery.