iv) One basis for messenger RNA which transfers information from genes to proteins was appearance in bacteria after phage-infection of a new RNA whose base composition corresponds to that of the virus DNA, by Elliot Volkin et al.31 Elucidation of repression provided the second basis. A requirement of RNA synthesis for protein production had been shown; mutants of E. coli deprived of purines or pyrimidines stopped making proteins as well as nucleic acids, reported by Pardee in 1954 as “…. continuous formation of RNA is essential for protein formation.”32 An unstable intermediate between gene and enzyme was proposed in 1958: “DNA does make an intermediate carrier of information, perhaps RNA,”33 this is in accord with an unstable intermediate.28 Pardee and Louise Prestidge in 1961 found that on/off kinetics of b-galactosidase induction are very rapid, with a 3 min half-life.34 mRNA was identified in 1961 by two laboratories.28,35