-
Gregor Mendel.
His observations on dominant and recessive traits in pea plants were able to deduce that genes come in pairs - one from each parent and with his research came his Laws of Inheritance. -
Friedrich Miescher.
He isolated nuclein in DNA, from a cells nuclei. He was the first to identify a DNA as a distinct molecule. -
Theodor Boveri.
He saw that as egg cells matured, chromosome numbers are split in half. He concluded that male sperm and the female egg were equivalent in the amount of hereditary information. They each had a half set of chromosomes. -
Walter Sutton.
He discovered that chromosomes are the basis of heredity, and during meiosis the reduction of chromosomes can be linked back to Mendel's laws of inheritance. -
Phoebus Levene.
Identified the components of DNA. Levene is most notable for his incorrect tetranucleotide hypothesis of DNA. -
Thomas Morgan.
He organized the ‘Fly Room’ which contributed to the understanding of genes and chromosomes in inheritance including proof for the Chromosomal Theory of Heredity, genetic linkages and chromosomal crossing over. -
Linus Pauling.
He studied a technique known as X-ray crystallography. Pauling discovered a rule of interpreting X-ray diffraction, which allowed him to figure out the shape of proteins which acted as a catalyst for the discovery of the DNA’s double helix. -
Erwin Chargaff.
Through careful experimentation Chargaff came up with 2 rules that led to the discovery of the structure of DNA:
The first rule was that the numbers of guanine in DNA is equal to the number of cytosine and the number of adenine is equal to the number of thymine.
The second rule was that the amount of cytosine and guanine, adenine and thymine varies from species to species, this suggested that DNA was the genetic material. -
Rosalind Franklin.
She acted as the climax of the discovery of the structure of DNA, she used the technique of X-ray diffraction in X-ray crystallography to analyze many different substances, including DNA - this is when she discovered DNA had all the characteristics of a helix - thus Rosalind discovered the structure of DNA. -
Maurice Wilkins.
He sped the process of Rosalind Frank's discovery by introducing it to Francis Crick and James Watson which gave them information and the idea of the double helix structure of DNA. -
Francis Crick and James Watson.
The information these two received from Wilkins along with previous evidence and information, suggested that DNA has a double helix structure and they proved this and released it in their paper ‘A Structure of DNA’ in 1953.
