Paved the Way for Bioinformatics with the First Protein Sequence Atlas
Margaret Oakley Dayhoff *1925–1983
Each protein sequence that is established, each evolutionary mechanism that is illuminated, each major innovation in phylogenetic history that is revealed will improve our understanding of the history of life.
The founder of bioinformatics Margaret Belle Oakley was born in Philadelphia in 1925. Her outstanding performance in school was rewarded with a scholarship to study mathematics at New York University, from which she graduated magna cum laude in 1945. In 1948 she received her doctorate in quantum chemistry, pioneering the use of computer systems for mass data processing in theoretical chemistry. That same year she married the physicist Edward Dayhoff, with whom she had two children. After studying electrochemistry at Rockefeller University and graduating in 1951, she first obtained a research position at the University of Maryland and in 1959 a professorship in physiology and biophysics at Georgetown University.
From 1955, she developed computer programs for comparing amino acid sequencing of homologous proteins of various species. She thus paved the way for sequence alignments. In 1965 she published an atlas of protein sequences and developed a one-letter code for amino acids, creating the basis for the first protein database. In 1966 she developed point accepted mutations (PAM), one of the first substitution matrices, to determine the probability of change in a protein sequence. Margaret Oakley Dayhoff died of a heart attack at the age of 57.