The molecule was found in the nucleus of the cells and so he called it nuclein.

Found in the nuclei of cells, Miescher names it "nuclein".

From this, he recovered an acidic substance which he called "nuclein."

Kossel showed that the substance, called "nuclein", consisted of a protein component and a non-protein component.

In 1878, Albrecht Kossel isolated the non-protein component of "nuclein", nucleic acid, and later isolated its five primary nucleobases.

He subjected the purified nuclei to an alkaline extraction followed by acidification resulting in a precipitate being formed which Miescher called nuclein (now known as DNA).

As a result of his work on the action of phlorhizin, a glucoside provoking glycosuria, and another one on nuclein metabolism in man, he was appointed "Privatdozent" (Lecturer) in 1900.

He is credited for coining the term "nucleic acid", in exchange for Friedrich Miescher's (1844-1895) "nuclein", when it was demonstrated that nuclein had acidic properties.

Following Mieschers work, was the German biochemist, Albrecht Kossel, who, in 1878, isolated the non-protein components of "nuclein", and discovered the five nucleobases present in nucleic acids: adenine, cytosine, guanine, thymine and uracil.

The importance of Miescher's discovery was not apparent until Albrecht Kossel (a German physiologist specializing in the physiological chemistry of the cell and its nucleus and of proteins) carried out research on the chemical structure of nuclein.

Miescher isolated in various phosphate-rich chemicals, which he called nuclein (now nucleic acids), from the nuclei of white blood cells in 1869 at Felix Hoppe-Seyler's laboratory at the University of Tübingen, Germany, paving the way for the identification of DNA as the carrier of inheritance.