Kary Mullis 2026-10-14
Portrait of Kary Mullis
. Photograph by Dona Mapston, shown in the crop provided by Wikimedia Commons, under CC BY-SA 3.0. Source. Polymerase chain reaction history 2026-10-14
The 1993 Nobel chemistry announcement credits Kary Mullis with inventing the polymerase chain reaction method and states that the technique was first presented in 1985. The reusable-product principle explains its power: each successfully copied interval can help specify the next generation. The award attribution is a historical claim; it does not imply that every improvement in DNA polymerases, thermal cyclers or PCR controls came from one person.[ref]
Press release: The 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry by Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. 13 October 1993 announcement, award citation and introductory account of PCR first presented in 1985
