Nobel Prize-winning scientist Nirenberg dies at 82

(AP) -- Marshall Nirenberg, a scientist whose work untangling fundamental genetic processes earned him a Nobel Prize, has died. He was 82.

Nirenberg's sister Joan Geiger says he died of cancer Jan. 15 in New York City.

In 1961, Nirenberg and a colleague conducted an experiment that showed how the genetic information contained in DNA is translated into the protein molecules in cells.

His work earned him the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1968.