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.
Unravelling the double helix The discovery of the structure of DNA by James Watson and Francis Crick in 1953 is one of the most famous scientific discoveries of all time. The function of DNA depends to a large extent on its structure.