[2] In 1939 Hollaender published research showing that the mutations of spores of the ringworm fungus occurred in the same spectrum as the absorption spectrum of nucleic acids indicating that nucleic acids form the building blocks of genes.

Later on, Hollaender worked at Oak Ridge National Laboratories with M. Laurance Morse, who himself later went on to collaborate with Esther Lederberg.

His research was not appreciated for its discovery at the time, and later scientists reports were necessary before science accepted the role of nucleic acids as the genetic material.

[1][3] In 1981 Hollaender established the Council for Research Planning in Biological Sciences, and was its president at the time of his death from a pulmonary embolism in 1986.

[7] The US National Academy of Sciences gives the Alexander Hollaender Award in Biophysics every three years in his honor.