Nobel Prize winner Marshall Nirenberg dead at 82

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Marshall Nirenberg, a scientist whose work untangling fundamental genetic processes earned him a Nobel Prize, has died. He was 82.

Nirenberg died of cancer Jan. 15 in New York City, his sister Joan Geiger said.

In 1961, Nirenberg and a colleague conducted an experiment that showed how the genetic information contained in DNA is translated into the protein molecules in cells.

His work earned him a share of the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1968.

-- Associated Press