Kary Mullis Death
Kary passed away on August 7, 2019 at the age of 74 in Newport Beach, California, USA. Kary's cause of death was pneumonia.
When did Kary Mullis die?
August 7, 2019How did Kary Mullis die? What was the cause of death?
PneumoniaHow old was Kary Mullis when died?
74Where did Kary Mullis die? What was the location of death?
Newport Beach, California, USA
Kary Mullis Birthday and Date of Death
Kary Mullis was born on December 28, 1944 and died on August 7, 2019. Kary was 74 years old at the time of death.
Birthday: December 28, 1944
Date of Death: August 7, 2019
Age at Death: 74
Kary Mullis - Biography
Kary Banks Mullis (born December 28, 1944) is a Nobel Prize-winning American biochemist, author, and lecturer. In recognition of his improvement of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique, he shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Michael Smith and earned the Japan Prize in the same year. The process was first described by Kjell Kleppe and 1968 Nobel laureate H. Gobind Khorana, and allows the amplification of specific DNA sequences. The improvements made by Mullis allowed PCR to become a central technique in biochemistry and molecular biology, described by The New York Times as "highly original and significant, virtually dividing biology into the two epochs of before P.C.R. and after P.C.R."
In 1983, Mullis was working for Cetus Corporation as a chemist. Late one night while driving with his girlfriend, who was also a chemist at Cetus, he had the idea to use a pair of primers to bracket the desired DNA sequence and to copy it using DNA polymerase; a technique that would allow rapid amplification of a small stretch of DNA and become a standard procedure in molecular biology laboratories. Cetus took Mullis off his usual projects to concentrate on PCR full-time.
Mullis succeeded in demonstrating PCR December 16, 1983. In his Nobel Prize lecture, he remarked that the success did not make up for his girlfriend breaking up with him. "I was sagging as I walked out to my little silver Honda Civic. Neither [assistant] Fred, empty Beck's bottles, nor the sweet smell of the dawn of the age of PCR could replace Jenny. I was lonesome." He received a $10,000 bonus from Cetus for the invention.
Known for his quick wit and colorful stories, Mullis enjoyed surfing. He married four times, and had a total of three children by two of his wives. At the time of his death, he had two grand children. He used profanities to make a point and often said, “Oh, Lord,” in response to the absurdities experienced in life.
Mullis reported an encounter with a "standard extraterrestrial raccoon” at his cabin in the woods of northern California around midnight one night in 1985; he denied being on psychedelics at the time.
