Editing Kary Mullis (section)

== Early life and education ==

Mullis was born in [[Lenoir, North Carolina]], near the [[Blue Ridge Mountains]],<ref name="Nobel bio">{{cite web |last1=Mullis |first1=Kary B. |title=Kary B. Mullis Biographical |url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1993/mullis/biographical/ |website=NobelPrize.org |publisher=Nobel Prize Outreach AB |date=n.d. |access-date=July 27, 2010}}</ref> on December 28, 1944, to Cecil Banks Mullis and Bernice Barker Mullis.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1993 |url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1993/mullis/biographical/ |access-date=2022-04-22 |website=NobelPrize.org |language=en-US}}</ref> His family had a background in farming in this rural area. As a child, Mullis said, he was interested in observing organisms in the countryside.<ref name="Shmaefsky 2006">{{Cite book |last=Shmaefsky |first=Brian Robert |page=184 |title=Biotechnology 101 |publisher=Greenwood Press |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-313-33528-0}}</ref> He and his cousins would often taunt livestock by feeding them through electric fences, and Kary was mostly interested in the spiders in his grandparents' basement.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1993 |url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1993/mullis/biographical/ |access-date=2022-04-22 |website=NobelPrize.org |language=en-US}}</ref> He grew up in [[Columbia, South Carolina]],<ref name="Shmaefsky 2006" /> where he attended [[Dreher High School]],<ref name="Nobel lecture">{{cite web |last1=Mullis |first1=Kary |title=Nobel Lecture, December 8, 1993: The Polymerase Chain Reaction |url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1993/mullis/lecture/ |website=NobelPrize.org}}</ref> graduating in the class of 1962. He recalled his interest in chemistry beginning when he learned how to chemically synthesize and build solid fuel propulsion rockets as a high school student during the 1960s.<ref>{{cite AV media |people=Mullis, Kary |url=https://www.ted.com/talks/kary_mullis_play_experiment_discover/transcript |title=Play! Experiment! Discover! |website=TED.com |date=February 2002 |type=video with transcript |access-date=May 9, 2016}}</ref>

He earned a Bachelor of Science in [[chemistry]]<ref name="Nobel bio" /> from the [[Georgia Institute of Technology]] in [[Atlanta]] in 1966, during which time he married his first wife, Richards Haley, and started a business.<ref name="Yoffe 1994">{{Cite magazine |last=Yoffe |first=Emily |author-link=Emily Yoffe |magazine=Esquire |title=Is Kary Mullis God? (Or Just the Big Kahuna?) |volume=122 |number=1 |date=July 1994 |pages=68–75 |issn=0194-9535 |url=https://classic.esquire.com/article/1994/7/1/is-kary-mullis-god-or-just-the-big-kahuna |url-access=subscription |archive-date=6 February 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200206055832/https://classic.esquire.com/article/1994/7/1/is-kary-mullis-god-or-just-the-big-kahuna |url-status=live}}</ref> He earned his PhD in 1973 in [[biochemistry]] at the [[University of California, Berkeley]] (UC Berkeley), in [[Joe Neilands|J. B. Neilands]]' laboratory, which focused on synthesis and structure of bacterial iron transporter molecules.<ref name="Mullis 1973">{{Cite thesis |first=Kary Banks |last=Mullis |title=Schizokinen: Structure and Synthetic Work |date=December 1973 |publisher=University of California, Berkeley |type=doctoral thesis |oclc=17971376}}</ref> Although he published a sole-author paper in ''[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]'' in the field of [[astrophysics]] in 1968,<ref name="Mullis 1968">{{Cite journal |last=Mullis |first=Kary |date=May 1968 |title=Cosmological Significance of Time Reversal |journal=Nature |volume=218 |issue=5142 |pages=663–664 |doi=10.1038/218663b0 |bibcode=1968Natur.218..663M |s2cid=4151884 |issn=1476-4687}}</ref> he struggled to pass his oral exams (with a colleague recalling that "He didn’t get his propositions right. He didn’t know general biochemistry"), and his dissertation was accepted only after several friends pitched in to "cut all the whacko stuff out of it" while his advisor lobbied the committee to reconsider its initial decision.<ref name="McDonald">{{Cite magazine |last=McDonald |first=Coby |date=Winter 2019 |title=Intolerable Genius: Berkeley's Most Controversial Nobel Laureate |magazine=California Magazine |url=https://alumni.berkeley.edu/california-magazine/winter-2019/intolerable-genius-berkeleys-most-controversial-nobel-laureate |access-date=2021-08-24 |publisher=Cal Alumni Association |oclc=939087276}}</ref>

His doctoral dissertation was on the structure of the bacterial [[siderophore]] schizokinen.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Mullis |first1=Kary B. |last2=Pollack |first2=J. R. |last3=Neilands |first3=J. B. |year=1971 |title=Structure of schizokinen, An iron-transport compound from Bacillus megaterium |journal=Biochemistry |volume=10 |issue=26 |pages=4894–4898 |doi=10.1021/bi00802a010 |pmid=4332462 |issn=0006-2960}}</ref> J. B. Neilands was known for his groundbreaking work on siderophores, and Mullis was a part of that with his characterization of schizokinen.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Kary Mullis |url=https://www.k-state.edu/bmb/seminars/hageman/2013-Mullis.html |access-date=2021-08-08 |website=www.k-state.edu}}</ref> Following his graduation, Mullis completed postdoctoral fellowships in pediatric [[cardiology]] at the [[University of Kansas Medical Center]] (1973–1977) and [[pharmaceutical chemistry]] at the [[University of California, San Francisco]] (1977–1979).<ref name=":2">[http://www.karymullis.com/pdf/karymullis-cv.pdf CV 2009] karymullis.com</ref>