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Although, the late Oswald Avery made several contributions to scientific progress, he is best known for his role in discovering that deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is the molecular base for passing on genetic information to future generations. Oswald Theodore Avery was born October 21, 1877 in Halifax, Nova Scotia to Joseph Francis and Elizabeth Crowdy Avery. His father was a native of England and worked as a Baptist minister (“Oswald” 2001). When Oswald was 10, the Avery family immigrated to the United States and settled in New York’s Lower East Side, where his father became the pastor for the Mariner’s Temple (“Oswald” 1997). As Avery was growing up he learned to play the cornet and he would play it on Sundays to attract people to his father’s church. He played so well that he won a scholarship to the National Conservatory of Music (“Oswald” 1997). In 1893 Avery attended the Colgate Academy. Then he went to Colgate University, graduating in 1900 with a B.A. In 1904 Oswald Avery received his medical degree from the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University (�