<P> The Hershey -- Chase experiments were a series of experiments conducted in 1952 by Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase that helped to confirm that DNA is genetic material . While DNA had been known to biologists since 1869 , many scientists still assumed at the time that proteins carried the information for inheritance because DNA appeared simpler than proteins . In their experiments , Hershey and Chase showed that when bacteriophages , which are composed of DNA and protein , infect bacteria , their DNA enters the host bacterial cell , but most of their protein does not . Although the results were not conclusive , and Hershey and Chase were cautious in their interpretation , previous , contemporaneous , and subsequent discoveries all served to prove that DNA is the hereditary material . </P>
who used viruses to determine that dna was the molecule of heredity
Alfred Hershey Martha Chase