Maclyn McCarty, physician and microbiologist, died of congestive heart failure in New York City on 2 January. He was the last survivor of the three-man team that demonstrated that genes are made of DNA. Previously, most scientists believed that genes must be made of proteins and that DNA lacked the necessary complexity to carry hereditary information. But in 1944, Oswald T. Avery, Colin MacLeod and McCarty published the first paper, in a series of three, that conclusively showed DNA to be the carrier of genetic information. This paper was entitled "Studies on the chemical nature of the substance inducing transformation of pneumococcal types", and the research crowned a 30-year effort, undertaken in Avery's laboratory at Rockefeller Hospital in New York, to understand and combat pneumococcal pneumonia.
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机译：医生和微生物学家Maclyn McCarty于1月2日在纽约市死于充血性心力衰竭。他是三人小组的最后一个幸存者，证明了基因是由DNA制成的。以前，大多数科学家认为基因必须由蛋白质组成，而DNA缺乏携带遗传信息的必要复杂性。但是在1944年，奥斯瓦尔德·T·埃弗里（Oswald T. Avery），科林·麦克劳德（Colin MacLeod）和麦卡蒂（McCarty）发表了第一篇论文，每篇共三篇，最终证明DNA是遗传信息的载体。这篇论文的标题是“关于诱导肺炎球菌类型转化的物质的化学性质的研究”，这项研究在纽约洛克菲勒医院的艾利实验室进行了30年的努力，旨在理解和抵抗肺炎球菌性肺炎。
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