to prevent injury, decay, waste, or loss of: Conserve your strength for the race. to use or manage (natural resources) wisely; preserve; save: Conserve the woodlands. Physics, Chemistry. to hold (a property) constant during an interaction or process: the interaction conserved linear momentum.
Using a bacteriophage (virus) and the bacterium Escherichia coli, Hershey and Chase were able to show that only viral DNA entered the host; thus it was DNA that directed the production of new viral particles. This strongly suggested that DNA was the genetic material. 1  Take a tour of the Hershey-Chase Experiment.
James Watson was a pioneer molecular biologist who is credited, along with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins, with discovering the double helix structure of the DNA molecule. The trio won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1962 for their work.