who discovered DNA was the hereditary material of viruses?

Answer 1

Hershey and Chase.

Answer 2

If this were on an exam, I would say NO because most people do not consider viruses living. If this is a question just out of curiosity, than you should ask yourself, are viruses living. I don't care either way: either viruses are the simplest life-forms, or viruses are the most complicated partials. Although (I just thought of this as I'm typing this), viruses do not really give off offspring, so they do not have hereditary material, so the answer could still be NO.

Answer 3

Viruses can be classified as RNA- or DNA-containing viruses. All RNA viruses are not retroviruses. The virus of common cold for example is an RNA virus but not a retrovirus.

Although I am a virologist I cannot answer your very good question, but I can tell you that the first virus to be discovered was the tobacco virus (very big):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_mosaic_virus


Stephane

Answer 4

The people responsible for the discovery of the double-helical structure of DNA were Francis Crick, Rosalind Franklin, Linus Pauling, James Watson and Maurice Wilkins.

In 1961 Rous sarcoma virus (RSV) particles were shown to contain RNA and thus oncogenic retroviruses were called RNA tumor viruses. However, cells transformed by RSV maintained stable properties through many mitoses. This heritability of virus-transformed phenotype, even in the absence of viral replication, led Howard Temin to postulate that in the infected cell, the RSV genome made a DNA copy which then integrated into host chromosomal DNA . Temin called his concept the DNA pro virus hypothesis by analogy with the integrated prophage of temperate bacteriophage. Indeed, André Lwoff, who won a Nobel Prize for discovering prophage and lysogeny, had suggested integration of the DNA tumor virus, polyoma virus . Thus the concept of integration of DNA tumor virus genomes in transformed somatic cells was debated, and was demonstrated in 1968 . However, the notion of Mendelian transmission of integrated genomes of RNA tumor viruses in the germ-line of healthy animals was regarded as bizarre.

I hope this helps its not definitive, as even today many new virus DNA genomes are being discovered not least in HIV.

I cannot find any closer reference to the original DNA discovery in 1953.

Answer 5

Virus's do have DNA except retroviruses that have RNA.
This sounds like a homework question so I'll leave you to do the research.

Answer 6

I think it was Avery, Hershey and Chase but I can't be sure off the top of my head

Answer 7

nobody, virus dont have dna