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Gregor Mendel • Austrian monk • First person to create a workable theory of trait transfer • “Father of genetics” • Examined dominant and recessive traits and how parents pass along their traits to offspring • Used purple pea plants and white pea plants • Ran experiments on 29,000 pea plants from 1856-1863 • Later tried experiments with bees
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Charles Darwin & Alfred Russel Wallace announce the Theory of Natural Selection stating that the strong, survivng members of a species will pass along their genes.
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In 1900, two scientists rediscovered Mendel's theory on dominant and recessive traits and verified it to be true, thus introducing the theory to be generally accepted in the scientific community.
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Nettie Stevens and Edmund Wilson discovered sex chromosomes. XX = female XY = male
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In 1910, Thomas Hunt Morgan discovered that there was a way for offspring to inherit traits on the sex chromosomes. He discovered this by using fruit flies and observing "white eye" in fruit flies.
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In 1950, Erwin Chargaff discovered that there was a 1-to-1 ratio of adenine to thymine and guamine to cytosine in DNA by examining DNA for several different species.
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In 1951, the first sharp X-ray diffraction photographs of DNA were taken.
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In 1953, Francis Crick and James Watson solved the 3-D structure of DNA.
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In 1978, Somatostatin became the first hormone produced by recombinant DNA technology. It is used to inhibit the secretion of growth hormones.
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In 1983, James Gusella used blood samples from his co-workers to prove that the gene for Huntington's Disease is on chromosome 4.
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In 1988, the Human Genome Project began.
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In 1989, Alec Jeffreys was the first to use DNA fingerprinting in murder, paternity, and immigration cases. He coined the term "DNA Fingerprinting".
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In 1993, FlavrSavr Tomatoes were genetically altered to have a longer shelf life.
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In 1996, Dolly the Sheep was cloned from an adult somatic cell, using nuclear transfer. She lived for 7 years and became the centerpiece of the debate on all things biotechnical.
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In 2008, the FDA declared that cloned meat is just as safe to eat as meat from uncloned animals. To this day, there is still a debate over the safety and labeling of cloned meat.
