Year Researcher Contribution/Discovery
1865 Mendel Mendelian laws
1900 Correns, DeVries, Tschermak Rediscovery of Mendelian laws
1900 Landsteiner ABO blood group system
1908 Hardy & Weinburg Hardy-Weinburg law
1910-1920 Morgan Chromosome mapping in fruit flies
1941 Beadle & Tatum One gene, one enzyme
1942 Ford Genetic polymorphism
1949 Barr & Bertram Sex chromatin
1953 Watson & Crick Structure of DNA
1961 Lyon X-chromosome inactivation
1968-1970 Linn, Arber & Smith Restriction endonucleases (RE)
1971-1975 Nathans & Smith DNA characterization with RE
1975 Southern DNA blotting
1975-1977 Sanger & Gilbert DNA sequencing
Somatic recombination in
1976 Tonegawa, et al.
immunoglobulin genes
1984 Bishop & Varmus Oncogenes
1984 Gitschier, Toole, et al. Cloning of Factor VIII gene
1984-1985 Mullis, Saiki, et al. Polymerase chain reaction
1989 Collins, Riordan, Tsui, et al. Isolation of cystic fibrosis gene
1990 Yamamoto, et al. Cloning of the ABO genes
Year Scientist(s) Discovery
Joint announcement of the theory of
natural selection-that members of a
Charles Darwin Alfred Russel
1858 population who are better adapted
Wallace
to the environment survive and pass
on their traits.
1859 Charles Darwin Published The Origin of Species.
Published the results of his
1866 Gregor Mendel investigations of the inheritance of
"factors" in pea plants.
Mendel's principles were
Carl Correns Hugo de Vries Erich von independently discovered and
1900
Tschermak verified, marking the beginning of
modern genetics.
Pointed out the interrelationships
between cytology and Mendelism,
1902 Walter Sutton
closing the gap between cell
morphology and heredity.
Independently described the
behavior of sex chromosomes-XX
1905 Nettie Stevens Edmund Wilson
determines female; XY determines
male.
Proposed that some human diseases
are due to "inborn errors of
1908 Archibald Garrod
metabolism" that result from the
lack of a specific enzyme.
Proposed a theory of sex-linked
inheritance for the first mutation
discovered in the fruit fly,
1910 Thomas Hunt Morgan
Drosophila, white eye. This was
followed by the gene theory,
including the principle of linkage.
Used x-rays to cause artificial gene
1927 Hermann J. Muller
mutations in Drosophila.
Proposed that some unknown
"principle" had transformed the
1928 Fred Griffith
harmless R strain of Diplococcus to
the virulent S strain.
Harriet B. Creighton Demonstrated the cytological proof
1931
Barbara McClintock for crossing-over in maize.
Irradiated the red bread mold,
George Beadle Neurospora, and proved that the
1941
Edward Tatum gene produces its effect by
regulating particular enzymes.
Oswald Avery Reported that they had purified the
1944 Colin MacLeod transforming principle in Griffith's
Maclyn McCarty experiment and that it was DNA.
Organized a phage course at Cold
Spring Harbor Laboratory which was
taught for 26 consecutive years. This
1945 Max Delbruck
course was the training ground of
the first two generations of
molecular biologists
Developed the hypothesis of
late 1940s Barbara McClintock transposable elements to explain
color variations in corn.
Discovered a one-to-one ratio of
adenine to thymine and guanine to
1950 Erwin Chargaff
cytosine in DNA samples from a
variety of organisms.
Obtained sharp X-ray diffraction
1951 Rosalind Franklin
photographs of DNA.
Used phages in which the protein
Martha Chase was labeled with 35S and the DNA
1952
Alfred Hershey with 32P for the final proof that
DNA is the molecule of heredity.
Francis Crick Solved the three-dimensional
1953
James Watson structure of the DNA molecule.
Used isotopes of nitrogen to prove
Matthew Meselson
1958 the semiconservative replication of
Frank Stahl
DNA.
Purified DNA polymerase I from E.
1958 Arthur Kornberg coli, the first enzyme that made DNA
in a test tube.
Led teams that cracked the genetic
Marshall Nirenberg code- that triplet mRNA codons
1966
H. Gobind Khorana specify each of the twenty amino
acids.
Isolated the first restriction enzyme,
Hamilton Smith
1970 HindII, that could cut DNA molecules
Kent Wilcox
within specific recognition sites.
Paul Berg Produced the first recombinant DNA
1972
Herb Boyer molecules.
Led the team at Cold Spring Harbor
Laboratory that refined DNA
1973 Joseph Sambrook
electrophoresis by using agarose gel
and staining with ethidium bromide.
Showed that a recombinant DNA
Annie Chang
1973 molecule can be maintained and
Stanley Cohen
replicated in E. coli.
International meeting at Asilomar,
California urged the adoption of
1975
guidelines regulating recombinant
DNA experimentation.
Developed the chain termination
1977 Fred Sanger (dideoxy) method for sequencing
DNA.
The first genetic engineering
company (Genentech) is founded,
1977
using recombinant DNA methods to
make medically important drugs.
Somatostatin became the first
1978 human hormone produced using
recombinant DNA technology.
Three independent research teams
1981 announced the discovery of human
oncogenes (cancer genes).
Used blood samples collected by
Nancy Wexler and her co-workers to
1983 James Gusella
demonstrate that the Huntington's
disease gene is on chromosome 4.
Published a paper describing the
polymerase chain reaction (PCR),
1985 Kary B. Mullis
the most sensitive assay for DNA yet
devised.
The Human Genome Project began
with the goal of determining the
1988
entire sequence of DNA composing
human chromosomes.
Coined the term DNA fingerprinting
and was the first to use DNA
1989 Alec Jeffreys
polymorphisms in paternity,
immigration, and murder cases.
Identified the gene coding for the
cystic fibrosis transmembrane
Francis Collins
1989 conductance regulator protein
Lap-Chee Tsui
(CFTR) on chromosome 7 that, when
mutant, causes cystic fibrosis.
First gene replacement therapy-T
1990
cells of a four-year old girl were
exposed outside of her body to
retroviruses containing an RNA copy
of a normal ADA gene. This allowed
her immune system to begin
functioning.
FlavrSavr tomatoes, genetically
1993 engineered for longer shelf life, were
marketed.
