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Friedrich Miescher
Was the first person to describe DNA, by extracting it from Cell Nuclei. The only thing he discovered beyond that was DNA is not a protein. A fact is he founded Switzerland’s first psychological institute. -
Frederick Griffith
Griffith discovered that two strands of DNA[R and S], passes between two different strands of bacteria, he used mice injections as an example. He called these strands the “transforming principle”. He studied medicine at the university of Liverpool. -
Oswald Avery, Maclyn McCarty & Colin McCleod
They extracted Lipid, Protein, and Nucleic Acids to figure out which one was the transformed bacteria. But when DNA was confirmed to be the transforming principle, many other scientists couldn't believe it. The fact is that they took a whole decade to confirm their information. -
Alfred Hershey & Martha Chase
They held experiments to find out the composition of hereditary material was injected into bacteria during some reactions. Like expected DNA, not Proteins which was believed by many others, was actually injected. The fact is that this completely confirmed that DNA was a genetic material. -
Linus Pauling
He determined a Helix shape was included with globular proteins. This would help Watson and Crick break through with their discovery later. Linus published over 1200 papers or books during his lifetime. -
Erwin Chargaff
Erwin is known for rules he made about DNA. The most important rule was that in natural DNA, the number of guanine units is equal to the number of cytosine units and the number of adenine units is equal to the number of thymine units. A fact is he emigrated from Germany to the united states during the Nazi Era. -
Barbara McClintock
She discovered that genes are mobile. She studies chromosome breakage which leads to the locus that is able to change the gene’s position within the chromosome. 33 years later, she won the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine. -
Rosalind Franklin & Maurice Wilkins
These two had the initial workings for the DNA structure, where they discovered physical and chemical characteristics using X-Rays. A fun fact is these two barely ever got along. -
James Watson & Frances Crick
Both Watson and Crick studied the structure of DNA, the research of all the people before them have led up to this. Where they discovered the double helix. A fact is that when they published a book about their discoveries, they didn't give many people credit. -
Frederick Sanger
Sanger discovered that proteins were ordered molecules. He also realized that DNA that makes proteins also is ordered in some way. Sager won the Chemistry Nobel Prize for his findings in 1958. -
Matthew Meselson & Franklin Stahl
They performed experiments to show how DNA replicated semi-conservatively. Which means DNA strands are templates for others. A fact is their experiments began because of other scientists' debates. -
Paul Berg
Berg Discovered how to insert DNA from bacteria into the DNA of a virus. The discovery was known as “Hybrid DNA” Berg won the Nobel prize for chemistry in 1980. -
Kary Mullis
Mullis invented a process called Polymerase chain reaction, This is a large DNA replication reaction. A fact is that she also invented the PCR test, which have been being used as COVID-19 tests more frequently. -
J. Craig. Venter
Venter is known for being the first draft sequence of a human genome. He was part of the first team to transfect a cell with a synthetic chromosome. He is the founder of the non profit organization.
