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Roy Britten Dies

Feb 22, 2012

Roy Britten, who discovered that mammalian genomes includes a number of repetitive sequences, has died, reports the Los Angeles Times. He was 92. Britten, along with his colleague David Kohne at the Carnegie Institution, used a renaturation approach to show that mammalian DNA contains repetitive sequences."It soon became clear that actual genes, which serve as the blueprint for proteins, enzymes, and other cellular components, accounted for only a few percent of the genome," the LA Times says. Britten later moved to Caltech. His work "provided the most accurate images of what DNA is like until sequencing came along decades later," adds Caltech's Eric Davidson.

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