Dna

History and discovery timeline

By Martí Esteve

  • Discovery of nucleic acids - Friedrich Miescher

    Discovery of nucleic acids - Friedrich Miescher
    Isolated the genetic material from white blood cell nucleui. He noted it had an acidic nature and called it nuclein

  • Discovery of DNA components - Phoebus Levene

    Discovery of DNA components - Phoebus Levene
    Determined the components of DNA:
    adenine, guanine, thymine, cytosine, deoxyribose phosphate
    defined phosphatus-sugar base units called nucleotides.

  • Griffit's transformation experiment - Frederick Griffith

    Griffit's transformation experiment - Frederick Griffith
    Griffith used two strains of Streptococcus:
    Type S: virulent (deadly)
    Type R: non-virulent (harmless)

  • Avery, MacLeod and McCarty

    Avery, MacLeod and McCarty
    Determined the cause of the transformation in Griffith's experiment.
    They took live R and heat-treated S and mixed it with one of two enzymes.

  • Counting Nucleobases

    Counting Nucleobases
    Used paper chromatography and UV spectroscopy to examine the abundance of the nucleobases and he started to notice something VERY odd...

  • The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

    The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
    This prize was for Francis Crick, James Watson and Maurice Wilkins, for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material.