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Gregor Mendel
Gregor Mendel the "Father of Genetics" performed an experiement in 1857 that led to increased interest in the study of genetics. The greatest experiment that Mendel performed involved growing thousands of pea plants for 8 years -
Frederick Griffith
In 1928 a scientist named Frederick Griffith was working on a project that enabled others to point out that DNA was the molecule of inheritance -
Erwin Chargaff
In the 1940’s another scientist named Erwin Chargaff noticed a pattern in the amounts of the four bases: adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine. He took samples of DNA of different cells and found that the amount of adenine was almost equal to the amount of thymine, and that the amount of guanine was almost equal to the amount of cytosine. Thus you could say: A=T, and G=C. This discovery later became Chargaff’s Rule. -
Oswald Avery
Oswald Avery continued with Griffith’s experiment to see what the inheritance molecule was. In this experiment he destroyed the lipids, ribonucleic acids, carbohydrates, and proteins of the virulent pneumonia. Transformation still occurred after this. Next he destroyed the deoxyribonucleic acid. Transformation did not occur. Avery had found the inheritance molecule, DNA!
