Kary Mullis
Nobel Prize Winning Chemist
“I'm not any one thing-I'm me. I'm the sum total of all the things that I'm interested in, and I'm interested in a lot.”
Videos
By Roadtrip NationKary Mullis
Milestones
My road in life has been direct.
When he was a boy, he experimented with rocket fuel, sent a frog "into space."
Says he's still that little kid, with a passion for chemistry and inventing.
Went to UC Berkeley for his undergraduate through doctoral studies, then worked in a peptide chemistry lab in San Francisco.
Heard a lecturer say that they'd "fooled" a bacteria into making peptides; realized if bacteria could do it, he didn't want to learn how to make peptides.
Turned his vision towards artificially constructing strands of DNA.
Invented the Polymerase Chain Reaction, which allowed a small strand of DNA to be copied over and over.
Was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for that process.
After his Nobel Prize, it took him a while to figure out what to work on next-taught him there are many paths to go down, you shouldn't limit yourself to just one.
Keep following my journey
Education
High School
Career
Nobel Prize Winning Chemist
I received a Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1993, for inventing the polymerase chain reaction (PCR).
Career Roadmap
My work combines:
My work combines:
Education
Science
Helping People
Interviewed By
Costa Mesa - Corona del Mar
The second Roadtrip begins with three friends from Stevensville, Montana. Aaron, Liz, and Autumn, Team "Poor Lazy Overachievers," want to get out of the "velvet coffin" of their small town. They begin their Roadtrip across the US in Los Angeles. Their first interview is with Kary Mullis, Nobel Prize-winning chemist and author of Dancing Naked in the Mind Field.
