Jerard Hurwitz (November 20, 1928 – January 24, 2019)[1] was an American biochemist who co-discovered RNA polymerase in 1960 along with Sam Weiss, Audrey Stevens, and James Bonner.
Hurwitz joined the microbiology department at Washington University School of Medicine in 1956 and began investigating the incorporation of ribonucleotides into RNA.
This enzyme was at first hoped to be responsible for the synthesis of RNA in cells, and Ochoa's discovery was honored with a Nobel Prize in 1959.
[4] Remarkably, several other research groups reported similar discoveries at roughly the same time (Samuel B. Weiss, Audrey Stevens, and James Bonner).
He has been honored with the Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry, the Institut Pasteur Hazen Lectureship, and the New York Academy of Science's Louis and Bert Freeman Foundation Prize for Research in Biochemistry.