Carl Woese
E41403
Carl Woese was an American microbiologist and biophysicist best known for revolutionizing the tree of life by using ribosomal RNA sequencing to identify Archaea as a distinct domain of life.
All labels observed (4)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Carl Woese canonical | 8 |
| Woese | 2 |
| Carl Richard Woese | 1 |
| Woese and colleagues | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T321321 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Carl Woese Context triple: [Archaea, discoveredBy, Carl Woese]
-
A.
Lynn Margulis
Lynn Margulis was an influential American biologist best known for developing the endosymbiotic theory, which revolutionized understanding of the origin of eukaryotic cells.
-
B.
George Church
George Church was a stage actor known for his role in the original Broadway production of the musical "Oklahoma!".
-
C.
Max Delbrück
Max Delbrück was a German-American biophysicist and Nobel Prize–winning pioneer of molecular genetics whose work on bacteriophages helped establish the foundations of modern molecular biology.
-
D.
Walter Gilbert
Walter Gilbert is an American molecular biologist and Nobel laureate renowned for his pioneering work in DNA sequencing and gene regulation.
-
E.
Ian Darwin
Ian Darwin is a software developer and author best known for his contributions to Unix, Java, and open source programming resources.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Carl Woese Target entity description: Carl Woese was an American microbiologist and biophysicist best known for revolutionizing the tree of life by using ribosomal RNA sequencing to identify Archaea as a distinct domain of life.
-
A.
Lynn Margulis
Lynn Margulis was an influential American biologist best known for developing the endosymbiotic theory, which revolutionized understanding of the origin of eukaryotic cells.
-
B.
George Church
George Church was a stage actor known for his role in the original Broadway production of the musical "Oklahoma!".
-
C.
Max Delbrück
Max Delbrück was a German-American biophysicist and Nobel Prize–winning pioneer of molecular genetics whose work on bacteriophages helped establish the foundations of modern molecular biology.
-
D.
Walter Gilbert
Walter Gilbert is an American molecular biologist and Nobel laureate renowned for his pioneering work in DNA sequencing and gene regulation.
-
E.
Ian Darwin
Ian Darwin is a software developer and author best known for his contributions to Unix, Java, and open source programming resources.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
biophysicist
ⓘ
human ⓘ microbiologist ⓘ university teacher ⓘ |
| academicDegree |
Bachelor of Arts
ⓘ
Doctor of Philosophy ⓘ |
| awardReceived |
Crafoord Prize in Biosciences
ⓘ
linked to:
Crafoord Prize
Leeuwenhoek Medal ⓘ
linked to:
Leeuwenhoek Medal and Lecture
National Medal of Science ⓘ Selman A. Waksman Award in Microbiology ⓘ |
| causeOfDeath | pancreatic cancer ⓘ |
| countryOfCitizenship | United States of America ⓘ |
| dateOfBirth | 1928-07-15 ⓘ |
| dateOfDeath | 2012-12-30 ⓘ |
| doctoralThesis | The Nuclear Spin of the Hydrogen Molecule in the Liquid and Solid States ⓘ |
| doctoralThesisYear | 1953 ⓘ |
| educatedAt |
Amherst College
ⓘ
Yale University ⓘ |
| employer | University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign ⓘ |
| familyName |
Woese
ⓘ
linked to:
Carl Woese
|
| fieldOfWork |
biophysics
ⓘ
evolutionary biology ⓘ microbiology ⓘ molecular biology ⓘ |
| givenName | Carl ⓘ |
| hasAcademicAdvisor | Ernest C. Pollard ⓘ |
| influenced |
concept of the last universal common ancestor
ⓘ
modern microbial systematics ⓘ molecular phylogenetics ⓘ |
| knownFor |
discovery of Archaea as a distinct domain of life
ⓘ
ribosomal RNA-based phylogeny ⓘ three-domain system of classification ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| memberOf |
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
ⓘ
National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America ⓘ
linked to:
National Academy of Sciences
Royal Society ⓘ |
| name |
Carl Richard Woese
ⓘ
linked to:
Carl Woese
|
| notableWork |
classification of life based on 16S rRNA sequences
ⓘ
proposal of the three-domain system ⓘ |
| placeOfBirth |
Syracuse, New York, United States
ⓘ
linked to:
Syracuse
|
| placeOfDeath | Urbana, Illinois, United States ⓘ |
| positionHeld |
Stanley O. Ikenberry Chair in Microbiology
ⓘ
professor of microbiology ⓘ |
| researched |
microbial phylogeny
ⓘ
origin of life ⓘ ribosomal RNA ⓘ |
| sexOrGender | male ⓘ |
| workLocation | Urbana, Illinois, United States ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Carl Woese Description of subject: Carl Woese was an American microbiologist and biophysicist best known for revolutionizing the tree of life by using ribosomal RNA sequencing to identify Archaea as a distinct domain of life.
Referenced by (12)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
linked to: Carl Woese
linked to: Carl Woese
linked to: Carl Woese