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Higo Marie De Vries, Karl Franz Joseph Correns and Erich Tschermat von Seysenegg rediscovered the genetic work that Mendel had worked on, yet it had been ignored
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Clarence McClung found that females have 2 X chromosomes, and males have an X and a Y.
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The first chromosome maps were created.
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Hermann Muller discovered that X-Rays create mutations.
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Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod and Maclyn McCarthy discover that DNA is what is passed down through generations and is inherited.
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Werner Arber figured out that bacteria defend themselves against viruses by cutting the virus DNA using restriction enzymes. They are now used in DNA technologies. This was a major advancement in genetic engineering.
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The first test-tube baby is born and was the result of vitro fertilisation where the parents gametes were joined outside of the mother's body. Then the embryo was placed back into the mother to further develop.
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Charles Sibley and Jon Ahlquist were able to show through DNA that humans were more closely related to chimpanzees than any other ape species.
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The Human Genome project is created between scientists around 16 different countries to work out whole genetic code
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The first liver ‘xenotransplant’ from one type of animal to another is carried out successfully.
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Dolly the sheep is born. She was produced by Ian Wilmut and his team at the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh. She had been cloned from an udder cell of an adult sheep and the egg implanted into a completely different sheep. Dolly only lived six years, around half the usual lifespan for a sheep, it was found that she had aged more quickly than normal.
Polly the sheep born later the same year was the first genetically engineered sheep to be cloned. -
Cloned pigs born for the first time by Alan Coleman and his team at PPL.
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The sequencing of the human genome is completed, two years ahead of schedule.