Editing Hershey–Chase experiment (section)

==Historical background==
In the early twentieth century, biologists thought that proteins carried genetic information. This was based on the belief that proteins were more complex than DNA. [[Phoebus Levene|Phoebus Levene's]] influential "tetranucleotide hypothesis", which incorrectly proposed that DNA was a repeating set of identical [[nucleotide]]s, supported this conclusion. The results of the [[Avery–MacLeod–McCarty experiment]], published in 1944, suggested that DNA was the genetic material, but there was still some hesitation within the general scientific community to accept this, which set the stage for the Hershey–Chase experiment.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Hershey-Chase Experiments (1952), by Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase {{!}} Embryo Project Encyclopedia |url=https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/hershey-chase-experiments-1952-alfred-hershey-and-martha-chase |access-date=2024-06-30 |website=embryo.asu.edu}}</ref>

Hershey and Chase, along with others who had done related experiments, confirmed that DNA was the biomolecule that carried genetic information. Before that, [[Oswald Avery]], [[Colin Munro MacLeod|Colin MacLeod]], and [[Maclyn McCarty]] had shown that DNA led to the transformation of one strain of ''[[Streptococcus pneumoniae]]'' to another. The results of these experiments provided evidence that DNA was the biomolecule that carried genetic information.<ref>{{Cite web |title=View {{!}} KEEP |url=https://keep.lib.asu.edu/items/173265/view |access-date=2024-11-14 |website=keep.lib.asu.edu}}</ref>