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Genetics
Gregor Mendel first traced inheritance patterns of certain traits in pea plants and showed that they obeyed simple statistical rules with some traits being dominant and others being recessive. -
Genetics
Charles Darwin wrote “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. -
Genetics
Discovery of RNA Ferries Information 5 Sydney Brenner, François Jacob and Matthew Meselson discover that mRNA takes information from DNA in the nucleus to the protein-making machinery in the cytoplasm. -
Genetics
Gregor Mendel’s experiments on peas demonstrate that heredity is transmitted in discrete units. The understanding that genes remain distinct entities even if the characteristics of parents appear to blend in their children explains how natural selection could work and provides support for Darwin’s proposal. -
Genetics
Augustinian monk Gregor Mendel published his work on the patterns of inheritance in pea plants. His meticulous studies mark the birth of modern genetics. Mendel’s findings escape the notice of other researchers for over three decades. -
Genetics
Frederick Miescher isolated DNA from cells for the first time and calls it “nuclein”. -
Genetics
Friedrich Miescher publishes his paper identifying the presence of ‘nuclein’ (now known as DNA) and associated proteins, in the cell nucleus. -
Genetics
Francis Galton publishes The History of Twins, as a criterion of the relative powers of nature and nurture. -
Genetics
Walter Flemming describes chromosome behavior during animal cell division. He stains chromosomes to observe them clearly and describes the whole process of mitosis in 1882. -
Genetics
Chromosomes are discovered by German biologist Walter Fleming, and named with the Greek prefix meaning “colour” because they become stained when cells are dyed. -
Genetics
Hugo de Vries was conducting breeding experiments with a variety of plant species. -
Genetics
Hugo de Vries published a paper on his results that stated that each inherited trait was governed by two discrete particles of information, one from each parent, and that these particles were passed along intact to the next generation. -
Genetics
Botanists DeVries, Correns, and von Tschermak independently rediscover Mendel’s work while doing their own work on the laws of inheritance. The increased understanding of cells and chromosomes at this time allowed the placement of Mendel’s abstract ideas into a physical context. -
Genetics
Walter Sutton observes that the segregation of chromosomes during meiosis matched the segregation pattern of Mendel’s.
A British physician, Archibald Garrod, observes that the disease alkaptonuria is inherited according to Mendelian rules. This disease involves a recessive mutation, and was among the first conditions ascribed to a genetic cause. -
Genetics
Wilhelm Johannsen coins the word “gene” to describe the Mendelian unit of heredity. He also uses the terms genotype and phenotype to differentiate between the genetic traits of an individual and its outward appearance. -
Genetics
The Eugenics Movement:
In the history of DNA, the Eugenics movement is a notably dark chapter, which highlights the lack of understanding regarding the new discovery at the time. The term 'eugenics' was first used around 1883 to refer to the "science" of heredity and good breeding. This was remarkable in 1910. -
Genetics
Thomas Hunt Morgan and his students study fruit fly chromosomes. They show that chromosomes carry genes, and also discover genetic linkage. -
Genetics
Frederick Griffith showed that genes could be transferred. In what is now known as Griffith's experiment, injections into a mouse of a deadly strain of bacteria that had been heat-killed transferred genetic information to a safe strain of the same bacteria, killing the mouse. -
Genetics
Crossing over is identified as the cause of recombination; the first cytological demonstration of this crossing over was performed by Barbara McClintock and Harriet Creighton. -
Genetics
Jean Brachet is able to show that DNA is found in chromosomes and that RNA is present in the cytoplasm of all cells. -
Genetics
Thomas Morgan received the Nobel prize for linkage mapping. His work elucidated the role played by the chromosome in heredity. -
Genetics
Discovery: One Gene, One Enzyme Hypothesis George Beadle and Edward Tatum’s experiments on the red bread mold, Neurospora crassa, show that genes act by regulating distinct chemical events. They propose that each gene directs the formation of one enzyme. -
Genetics
Discovery: DNA Has a Regular Periodic Structure William Astbury, a British scientist, obtains the first X-ray diffraction pattern of DNA, which reveals that DNA must have a regular periodic structure. He suggests that nucleotide bases are stacked on top of each other. -
Genetics
Discovery: DNA Transforms Cells Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod, and Maclyn McCarty show that DNA (not proteins) can transform the properties of cells -- thus clarifying the chemical nature of genes. It was too the Discovery of Jumping Genes Barbara McClintock, using corn as the model organism, discovers that genes can move around on chromosomes. This shows that the genome is more dynamic than previously thought. These mobile gene units are called transposons and are found in many species. -
Genetics
Discovery: Genes Are Made of DNA Alfred Hershey & Martha Chase show that only the DNA of a virus needs to enter a bacterium to infect it, providing strong support for the idea that genes are made of DNA. -
Genetics
Discovery: DNA Double Helix
Francis H. Crick and James D. Watson described the double helix structure of DNA. They receive the Nobel Prize for their work in 1962. -
Genetics
Discovery: 46 Human Chromosomes
Joe Hin Tjio defines 46 as the exact number of chromosomes in human cells.
And the discovery of DNA copying enzyme Arthur Kornberg and colleagues isolated DNA polymerase, an enzyme that would later be used for DNA sequencing. -
Genetics
Discovery: First Screen for Metabolic Defect in Newborns
Robert Guthrie develops a method to test newborns for the metabolic defect, phenylketonuria (PKU). -
Genetics
US researcher Herb Boyer uses enzymes to cut DNA and splice it into bacterial plasmids, which then replicate producing many copies of the inserted gene. This heralds the dawn of genetic engineering -
Genetics
Discovery of: DNA Sequencing
Two groups, Frederick Sanger and colleagues, and Alan Maxam and Walter Gilbert, both develop rapid DNA sequencing methods. The Sanger method is most commonly employed in the lab today, with colored dyes used to identify each of the four nucleic acids that make up DNA. -
Genetics
Discovery of: PCR Invented
The polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, is used to amplify DNA. This method allows researchers to quickly make billions of copies of a specific segment of DNA, enabling them to study it more easily. -
Genetics
Discovery of: First Human Genetic Map
The first comprehensive genetic map is based on variations in DNA sequence that can be observed by digesting DNA with restriction enzymes. Such a map can be used to help locate genes responsible for diseases.
And the discovery of: Yeast Artificial Chromosomes Scientists discover that artificial chromosomes made from yeast can reliably carry large fragments of human DNA containing millions of base-pair pieces. -
Genetics
Discovery of: Second-Generation Genetic Map of Human Genome
A French team builds a low-resolution, microsatellite genetic map of the entire human genome. Each generation of the map helps geneticists more quickly locate disease genes on chromosomes. -
Genetics
Discovery of: M. tuberculosis Bacterium Sequenced
Mycobacterium tuberculosis causes the chronic infectious disease tuberculosis. The sequencing of this bacterium is expected to help scientists develop new therapies to treat the disease. -
Genetics
Discovery of: Human Genome Working Draft Completed
By the end of Spring 2000, HGP researchers sequence 90 percent of the human genome with 4-fold redundancy. This working draft sequence is estimated to be 99.9% accurate. -
Genetics
A tropical fish that fluoresces bright red becomes the first genetically modified pet to go on sale in the US. -
Genetics
Whole genome sequencing (WGS) has begun to provide an effective alternative to this approach through direct pinpointing of the molecular lesion in a mutated strain isolation from a genetic screen. Apart from significantly altering the pace and cost of genetic analysis, WGS also provides new perspectives on solving genetic problems that are difficult to tackle with conventional approaches, such as identifying the molecular basis of multigenic and complex traits. -
Genetics
Over a quarter of drugs that enter clinical development fail because they are ineffective. Growing insight into genes that influence human disease may affect how drug targets and indications are selected. However, there is little guidance about how much weight should be given to genetic evidence in making these key decisions. To answer this question, we investigated how well the current archive of genetic evidence predicts drug mechanisms. -
Genetics
This year, the Food and Drug Administration began offering news even earlier to select media outlets. Charles Seife writes in “How the FDA Manipulates the Media” that through the “close-hold embargo” offered to “top-tier media organizations, FDA cultivates a coterie of journalists whom it keeps in line with threats.”
The rush to report the same stories is why here at the bottom tier, DNA Science seeks the unusual, the research and reflections that others miss or that aren’t promoted. -
Genetics
Highly scalable generation of DNA methylation profiles in single cells
We present a highly scalable assay for whole-genome methylation profiling of single cells. We use our approach, single-cell combinatorial indexing for methylation analysis (sci-MET), to produce 3,282 single-cell bisulfite sequencing libraries and achieve read alignment rates of 68 ± 8%.