Kjell Kleppe
Kjell Kleppe was a Norwegian biochemist and molecular biologist who was a pioneer in the PCR technique and built the first laboratory in the country for bio and gene technology.
Kjell Kleppe earned a B.S. degree from the University of Oslo and a Ph.D. in enzymology from the University of Nebraska, USA. In 1966, he joined the University of Bergen, where he founded Felleslaboratorium for bioteknologi, the first gene technology laboratory in Norway with Professor Curt Endresen. He became a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization and Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters in 1984.
During his postdoctoral career in the United States, he put forward the idea of the polymerase chain reaction.
