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Richard E. Dickerson

American biochemist

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 18, 2026
Entity authorityQ7325362 ↗
Source-derived summary

Richard Earl Dickerson (October 8, 1931 – May 14, 2025) was an American biochemist. He was the first to carry out a single-crystal structure analysis of B-DNA, with what has become known as the "Dickerson dodecamer": C-G-C-G-A-A-T-T-C-G-C-G. At UCLA he continued his investigations of the structures of A- and B-DNA, and of complexes between DNA and drugs or proteins. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1985. During the academic year 1997–1998, Dickerson was the Newton-Abraham Visiting professor in Medical, Biological and Chemical Science at Lincoln College and the Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics at Oxford University.

From 2013, Dickerson was listed on the Advisory Council of the National Center for Science Education.

Education

B.S. in chemistry from Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1953.

Ph.D. in physical chemistry in 1957 at the University of Minnesota, studying the structures of boron hydrides under the direction of future Nobel Laureate Professor William N. Lipscomb.

Postdoc for two years at the University of Cambridge with John C. Kendrew.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Richard E. Dickerson” as american biochemist. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1931, 2025, 1985, 1997—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1931-10-08. The account is most persuasive where Richard, Dickerson and American can be independently traced.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as american biochemist. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7325362. VIAF identifies the subject as 108525280. The Library of Congress control number is n79059018. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1931, 2025, 1985 and 1997.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Richard E. Dickerson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.