in the famous meselson–stahl experiment of 1958 he and frank stahl showed with nitrogen isotope labeling that dna is replicated semi-conservatively. in addition, meselson, françois jacob, and sydney brenner discovered the existence of messenger rna in 1961. meselson has investigated dna repair in cells and how cells recognize and destroy foreign dna, and, with werner arber, was responsible for the discovery of restriction enzymes.