Phoebus Aaron Theodor Levene

1869-1940

A Russian-born American chemist who is best known for his pioneering studies in the area of nucleic acids.

While he worked with a variety of compounds, his most important findings were the isolation of the sugars, d-ribose from the ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecule and 2-deoxyribose from the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) molecule. Also noteworthy were his studies of DNA structure that helped lead to the deduction of its complete configuration by Watson and Crick.