History of Genetics

• Venter and Collins


  Discovered programmed call death and they both work on the human genome project. Completely sequenced the genome for several organism including humans.
• King


  Discovered that chips and humans share 99% of genes. She also discovered the breast cancer gene BRCA1, was the first to link cancer to an actual gene.
• Jeffreys


  Developed DNA fingerprinting technique that is used in many applications. He used restriction enzymes to digest DNA into a banding pattern that is compared to a known sample of DNA.
• Mullis


  Discovered that DNA could amplified, so that it could be studied better. The technique was called PCR polymerase chain reaction.
• Sanger


  Discovered the di- deoxy method of DNA sequencing.
• R. Kornberg


  Discovered chromatin structure. Determined that DNA was wound around histone proteins that accounted for its condensed packaging.
• Cohen and Boyer


  Used restriction enzymes to make recombinant DNA, DNA that has non native genes inserted into it.
• Jacob and Monod


  Were the first to understand how a gene was regulated (turned on/off) by studying the lac operon, a gene that codes for an enzyme that breaks down lactose.
• Nirenberg


  Cracked the universal genetic code, by studying E. coli. He determined that there were 64 codons that coded for the 20 amino acids present in all living organisms.
• A. Kornberg


  Isolated the enzyme that replicates DNA, DNA polymerase, and discovered DNA could be replicated in vitro, laid the ground work for Mullis' PCR
• Meselson and Stahl


  Discovered that DNA replicates in semi-conservative manner.
• Crick


  Developed the central dogma theory that explains how genes encode for proteins
• Watson, Crick and Franklin


  _________ and _________ used stolen X-ray crystallography images from _________ lab to determine the double helix structure of DNA.
• Hershey and Chase


  Showed that DNA was the molecule responsible for passing genes when studying bacteriophage
• Chargaff


  Discovered that the 4 bases ACTG are always present in a certain ratio, 1:1, A:T and G:C, called __________ rule.
• McClintock


  Discovered that genes were not stagnant and could transpose onto different chromosomes (jumping genes) when studying corn kernel color.
• Beadle and Tatum


  Discovered that enzymes were gene products, One gene one enzyme theory, when working with Neospora (bread mold)
• Muller


  Discovered that x-rays mutate DNA
• Morgan


  Discovered that chromosomes control traits when he studied white eyed male mutant drosophilia
• Meischer


  Discovered DNA (nuclein)

  Extracted from pus filled bandages
• Mendel


  Worked with pea plants and discovered the laws of heredity