The Avery-MacLeod-McCarty experiment was an experimental demonstration , reported in 1944 by Oswald Avery , Colin MacLeod , and Maclyn McCarty , that DNA is the substance that causes bacterial transformation , in an era when it had been widely believed that it was proteins that served the function of carrying genetic information ( with the very word protein itself coined to indicate a belief that its function was primary ) .
The Avery-MacLeod-McCarty experiment was an experimental demonstration , reported in 1944 by Oswald Avery , Colin MacLeod , and Maclyn McCarty , that DNA is the substance that causes bacterial transformation .