Who first identified nucleic acids, and where were they discovered? Friedrich Meischer discovered nucleic acids in blood cells. Phoebus Levine discovered nucleic acids in plant cells. James Watson and Francis Crick discovered nucleic acids in DNA. Gerardus Johannes Mulder discovered nucleic acids in bacterial cells.

Friedrich Miescher, a Swiss physician, was the first to identify nucleic acids in 1869 while working at the University of Tübingen. He extracted a substance he called "nuclein" from the nuclei of white blood cells, which later became known as DNA. His groundbreaking discovery laid the foundation for the field of genetics and molecular biology. Fast forward to 1953, when James Watson and Francis Crick unveiled the double-helix structure of DNA, building on Miescher's initial work. Their monumental discovery, which they famously described in a landmark paper in "Nature," opened the door to understanding DNA replication and heredity, setting the stage for modern genetics and biotechnology!