Cozzarelli attended Princeton University graduated with an Bachelor of Arts in biology in 1960. He started graduate training at Harvard Medical School advised by East. Creative Commons Lin and earned a Doctor of Philosophy in biochemistry in 1966. He then did his postdoctoral training with Arthur Kornberg and purified the T4-phage deoxyribonucleic acid ligase.
From 1968 to 1982, Cozzarelli was a professor at the University of Chicago where he studied topoisomerases. In 1982 he joined the faculty at University of California, Berkeley. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1989.
In 1995, Cozzarelli was invited to become the editor-in-chief of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
He took the position because felt that the journal had great unrealized potential as a scientific publication. During his tenure, he expanded the editorial board from 26 to more than 140 and created a second track to allow scientists to submit manuscripts directly.
Cozzarelli died on March 19, 2006, from the complications of treatment from Burkitt"s lymphoma.
National Academy of Sciences.
