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Robert Hooke coined the term "cells" and Anton Van Leewenhoek observed the first microorganisms because of the microscope
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Gregor Mendel, an Austrian monk working with pea plants, discovered the simple laws of inheritance of traits that allowed one to predict the outcome of crosses with certain traits.
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Louis Pasteur described the scientific basis for fermentation, wine making, and the brewing of beer, established the science of mircobiology, and proposed the germ theory, claiming that microorganisms were responsible for infectious diseases.
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Johann Miescher found nucleic acid in white blood cells from pus in bandages. This later led to scientists to believe that DNA might be the inheritable material of an organism.
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Studying fruit flies, Thomas Hunt Morgan discovered that genes were on chromosomes.
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Sir Alexander Fleming isolated penicillin from a fungus. Many of his ideas are used to develop biotechnology drugs today.
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Chargaff showed that in DNA the number of units of adenine equaled those of thymine and the number of units of cytosine equaled those of guanine.
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Beadle and Tatum proposed one "One gene produces one enzyme" hypothesis.
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Avery, McCarty, and McLeod established that indeed DNA was the hereditary material that was transfered.
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Using thier famous "blender experiment" Hershey and Chase proved viruses replicated using
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Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wikins established through X-ray crystallography that DNA was indeed a double helix.
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Watson and Crick discovered the structure of DNA
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Hayes discovered plasmid DNA, circular pices of DNA found in bacteria.
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Walter Gilbert discovered the mechanism of gene expression through his study of messenger RNA.
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Arber, Nathans, and Smith discovered bacterial restriction enzymes that cut DNA.
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Khorana and Nirenberg discovered the 64 codons (triplet code of 3 bases in DNA) that code for the 20 amino acids making up proteins.
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DNA plasmids were isolated and purified by Vinograd
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Madel and Higa were responsible for the first transformation of the bacterium Escherichia coli
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Clonung experiments were conducted by Boyer and Cohen
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Genentech, the world's first genetic engineering company, was founded.
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140 scientists met to draw up guidelines for work with recombinant DNA in microorganisms. Paul Berg was a key organizer
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Sanger and Gilbert found a way to sequence DNA. Given an unknown piece of DNA, they were able to read the correct order of bases of adrenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine
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Boyer inserted sythetic insulin gene into E. coli
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Botstein found that one could be identified bt the patturn made of one's DNA through a digest by different enzymes. This DNA fingerprint was called a Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (RFLP).
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Louise Joy Brown was born, the first human baby resulting from in vitro fertilization, in which sperm and egg are joined in a petri dish. the fertilized is later implanted in a womb
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The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that geneticaly altered life forms can be patened. This resulted in a huge startup of biotech companies.
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Ohio university scientists made the first transgenic animals
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Eli Lilly Company placed a human insulin gene inside bacteria
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Schell, Chilton, Van Montagu, Fraley, and Horsch transformed plants with Agrobacterium-mediated gene transfer.
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Kary Mullis invented polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to amplify DNA in the laboratory
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Jeffries applied RFLP in DNA profiling to the study of criminal cases
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An automated florescence sequencer was invented, speeding up the labor intence process
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Genes were moved into an organism through the use of a gene gun
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NIH revised safety guidelines for recombinant DNA to include plants grown in greenhouses and animals raised in barns
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Andrew Fire and Craig Mellow discovered RNA interference, silencing of genes, in the worm C. elegans
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Kohler, Milstein, and Jerne used monoclonal antibody (MAb) technology
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Maynard Olson and colleagues at Washington University invented "yeast artificial chromosomes" or YAC's, which are expression vectors for large proteins
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Ian Wilmut cloned Dolly the sheep from adult cell of an ewe at Roslin Institute in Scotland
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DNA microarray (DNA chip) technology, looking at the expression of all the genes of an organism at one time on a microscope slide or silicon chip, was developed
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Dabiri and Garner invented an automated DNA sequencer that had a capability of sequencing 76,800 base pairs per hour, 5 to 30 times faster than existing sequencers. Technology like the greatly sped up the Human Genome project.
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Ron Breaker coined the term riboswitch for part of an mRNA molecule that can regulate its own activity and therefor gene expression
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Announcement was made of the completion of the Human Genome Project (initiated in 1990) by Francis Collins and Craig Venter. The project provided the ability to find genes and gave rise to the sequencing of other genomes
