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Robert Hooke Describes Cells
In 1665, an Englishman named Robert Hooke (1635-1703) published Micrographia: or Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses coining the word “cell” for the first time in relation to biology in his description of magnified cork shavings. About what he saw, he wrote “… it was not unlike Honey-comb…in that these pores, or cells, were not very deep, but consisted of a great many little boxes..." These were not live cells but the remains of the plant cell walls. -
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek describes live cells for the first time.
The first person credited with seeing living cells was a Dutch microscopist by the name of Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723), who was the first to describe “animalcula” better known today as microorganisms. Among other things, Leeuwenhoek accurately described bacteria, protozoa, algae, nematodes, blood cells, muscle cells, and sperm cells. -
Charles Darwin Begins his Voyage on the HMS Beagle
The voyage lasted almost 5 years, ending on October 2, 1836. -
Matthias Schleiden
He wrote that all plant cells are made of multiple cells and originate from single cells. He suggested that cells are the basic building block of all plant matter. -
Theodor Schwann
A close friend of Schleiden, he would take his ideas about plant cells and apply them to animals a few months later. -
Rudolf Virchow
Published “omnis cellula e cellula” (all cells from cells) in 1858. The observations of Matthias Schleiden, Theodor Schwann, and Virchow become the basis of "Cell Theory." The theory states that cells are the basic unit of life, and all living things are composed of cells derived from previous cells, or that life does not appear by spontaneous generation. -
Charles Darwin Publishes "On the Origin of Species"
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Friedrich Miescher discovers DNA
Friedrich Miescher isolates DNA (and other nucleic acids), which he called "nuclein." -
DNA Double Helix model proposed
James Watson and Francis Crick, publish their paper proposing a doubble helical model for the structure of DNA in the journal "Nature." The same issue has an article by Maurice Wilkins supporting their data. The tree would get the Nobel Prize in 1962. Rosalind Franklin, whose data was key to solving the structure died before the Prize was given. -
Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) is Developed
Described by Kary Mullis, the technique that used a thermocycling to rapidly copy segments of DNA revolutionized biology. He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the technique in 1993.
