1 INTRODUCTION

During a long and extremely productive scientific life Michael Waring made substantial contributions to the understanding of certain fundamental physical properties of the DNA double helix. In this review I summarize his early studies on DNA supercoiling and his later conclusions on the role of natural DNA base analogues in determining DNA stiffness and nucleosome positioning. The latter are reassessed in the context of subsequent advances in the understanding of the parameters affecting base‐step deformability.

Michael's scientific career spanned nearly six extremely productive decades. He started out soon after the double‐helical structure of DNA was proposed by Watson and Crick, in 1953. And from then on DNA was always the main focus of his research, with an especial interest in the mechanism of how DNA‐binding drugs interacted with the genetic material. In this retrospective on Michael's science I shall concentrate on his contributions to the understanding of DNA structure and function rather than his voluminous exploration of drug‐DNA interactions. The latter, I'm sure, will be discussed by those more intimately involved in those experiments.

中文翻译：

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Michael Waring——DNA 中的科学生命

1 简介

在漫长而富有成效的科学生涯中，Michael Waring 为理解 DNA 双螺旋的某些基本物理特性做出了重大贡献。在这篇综述中，我总结了他早期关于 DNA 超螺旋的研究以及他后来关于天然 DNA 碱基类似物在确定 DNA 刚度和核小体定位中的作用的结论。后者在随后对影响基步变形性的参数的理解取得进展的背景下进行了重新评估。

迈克尔的科学生涯跨越了近六个极其富有成效的十年。1953 年，Watson 和 Crick 提出 DNA 的双螺旋结构后不久，他就开始了这项工作。从那时起，DNA 一直是他研究的主要焦点，对 DNA 结合药物如何相互作用的机制特别感兴趣与遗传物质。在这次迈克尔的科学回顾中，我将专注于他对理解 DNA 结构和功能的贡献，而不是他对药物-DNA 相互作用的大量探索。后者，我敢肯定，将由那些更密切参与这些实验的人讨论。