Rollin Douglas Hotchkiss (September 8, 1911 – December 12, 2004) was an American biochemist who helped to establish the role of DNA as the genetic material and contributed to the isolation and purification of the first antibiotics.
His early work isolating and synthesizing derivatives of glucoronic acid led to the identification of one of the specific polysaccharides in the capsule of type III pneumococci.
Hotchkiss spent the 1937–1938 academic year in the lab of Heinz Holter and Kaj Linderstrøm-Lang at Carlsberg Laboratory learning protein analysis techniques.
[3] In 1946, in the wake of the Avery–MacLeod–McCarty experiment showing that DNA, not protein, had the power to transform bacteria from one type to another, Hotchkiss rejoined Avery's lab.
Hotchkiss continued working in molecular genetics until his retirement in 1982, including significant collaborations with Julius Marmur, Maurice Fox, Alexander Tomasz, Joan Kent, Sanford Lacks, Elena Ottolenghi, and his wife Magda Gabor-Hotchkiss.