Double Nobel Prize-Winning Biochemist Frederick Sanger Dies at 95

The British scientist was considered a luminary in molecular biology

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SWAFFHAM BULBECK -AUGUST 4: (FILE PHOTO) Sir Frederick Sanger poses for a portrait at home in Swaffham Bulbeck, Cambridgeshire on August 4, 1993. Sir Frederick won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1958, for his work on the structure of proteins, especially that of Insulin. He won it for a second time in 1980 for his work on DNA. ( Photo by David Levenson/Getty Images )

Frederick Sanger, a British biochemist who twice won the Nobel Prize in chemistry, died Tuesday. He was 95, the Associated Press reports.

The revered scientist died in his sleep at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, according to the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology.

Sanger was first awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry at the age of 40 in 1958 for his work on protein structure, and then again in 1980 for identifying base sequences in nucleic acids. His second Nobel was received jointly with Paul Berg of Stanford University and Walter Gilbert of Harvard University.

The MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, which Sanger helped found in 1962, hailed the him for his great achievements and contributions to modern genetics and molecular biology. Sanger is one of four people to win two Nobel Prizes, along with Marie Curie, John Bardeen and Linus Pauling.

[AP]