-
Robert Hooke
saw cells in cork using a microscope -
Francesco Redi
disproved spontaneous generation by showing that fly maggots only appear on pieces of meat in jars if the jars are open to the air. Jars covered with cheesecloth contained no flies. -
Anton van Leeuwenhoek
observed bacteria. Leeuwenhoek's discoveries renew the question of spontaneous generation in microorganisms -
Joseph Priestley
demonstrated that plants produce a gas that animals and flames consume. Those two gases are carbon dioxide and oxygen -
Christian Friedrich Nasse
formulated Nasse's law: hemophilia occurs only in males and is passed on by unaffected females -
Theodor Schwann
proposed that all animal tissues are composed of cells. Schwann and Schleinden argued that cells are the elementary particles of life. -
Louis Pasteur
stated that microorganisms produce fermentation -
Charles R. Darwin
independently proposed a theory of biological evolution ("descent through modification") by means of natural selection. Only in later editions of his works did Darwin used the term "evolution." -
Walter Sutton
independently proposed that the chromosomes carry the hereditary information -
Alexander Fleming
discovered the first antibiotic, penicillin -
Hans Adolf Krebs
discovered the tricarboxylic acid cycle -
Martha Chase
showed that DNA is the genetic material in bacteriophage viruses -
Arthor Kornberg
discovered DNA polymerase enzymes -
Fred Sanger
used radioactive phosphorus as a tracer to chromatographically decipher a 120 base long RNA sequence -
Donald Huffman
discovered that Buckminsterfullerene can be separated from soot because it is soluble in benzene.