title: Ultraviolet photobiology: its early roots and insights into DNA repair.
abstract: This is the first of a series of commentaries on classic papers on DNA repair that highlight the birth of this discipline. The roots go deep, and in this first commentary, I describe some of the earliest discoveries of the mechanism of absorption of UV light in cells, and its lethal and mutagenic effects. Most remarkably, a discovery of DNA repair by the use of split doses of UV light was reported in 1919. Later commentaries will take us sequentially through the early years of DNA repair.
authors.affiliation: Auerback Melanoma Laboratory, UCSF Cancer Center, Room N431, Box 0808, University of California at San Francisco, 94143, USA. jcleaver@cc.ucsf.edu
authors.forename: James E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Cleaver
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004260:DNA Repair; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D018462:Photobiology / Q000266:history*; D014466:Ultraviolet Rays / Q000266:history*