# Fame.am profile — machine-readable export
# Canonical URL: https://fame.am/person/paul-berg
# Generated: 2026-08-31T17:34:49.664Z

schema: https://schema.org/Person
url: "https://fame.am/person/paul-berg"
name: "Paul Berg"
slug: "paul-berg"
description: "He cut and pasted DNA for the first time — the move that made genetic engineering possible and set off a debate over whether scientists should police themselves before regulators stepped in."
tagline: "American biochemist, Professor emeritus at Stanford University & Nobel laureate in Chemistry (1926–2023)"
image: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Paul_Berg_in_1980.jpg"
gender: "male"
country:
  name: "United States"
  isoCode: "US"
category:
  name: "Academics"
  slug: "academics"
profileType:
  name: "Academic"
  slug: "academic"
  entityType: "https://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q39631"
birthDate: "1926-06-30"
deathDate: "2023-02-15"
livingStatus: "DECEASED"
scores:
  popularity:           55.56
  momentum:             0
  historical:           24.079596
  currentAttention:     0
  sourceConfidence:     60
  profileCompleteness:  70
  trendDirection:       "STABLE"
ranks:
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  country:  null
  category: null
tags:
  - name: "Scientists"
    slug: "scientists"
  - name: "Scientist"
    slug: "scientist"
  - name: "Chemistry"
    slug: "chemistry"
  - name: "Biology"
    slug: "biology"
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  - name: "Americas"
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  - name: "20th Century"
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    title: "Paul Berg"
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    title: "Paul Berg"
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    title: "Paul Berg"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Paul Berg"
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    type:  "WEBSITE"
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    title: "Wikiquote"
    type:  "WEBSITE"
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# bio (long form, separated for readability)
bio: |
  Paul Berg grew up in Brooklyn, studied biochemistry at Penn State, and earned his PhD from Case Western Reserve in 1952. He taught at Washington University School of Medicine before moving to Stanford, where he ran the Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine. His lab pioneered recombinant DNA technology — splicing genetic material from different organisms — work that won him the 1980 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The breakthrough also prompted Berg to organize the Asilomar Conference in 1975, where scientists voluntarily set safety guidelines for gene-splicing experiments before governments imposed them. He later received the National Medal of Science in 1983 and the National Library of Medicine Medal in 1986. Berg died in February 2023 at 96.