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Friedrich Miescher
He was the first to identify DNA as a distinct molecule at University of Tübingen. He did experiments on the chemical composition of leukocytes which led to this discovery. A fact is he founded Switzerland’s first psychological institute in 1885. -
Frederick Griffith
He discovered that hereditary material passes between two strains of bacteria (R and S). He injected mice with these in different ways to show that DNA can pass between them. He was the first to reveal the “transforming principle”. A fact is he studied medicine at the University of Liverpool. -
Oswald Avery, Maclyn McCarty & Colin McCleod
They extracted lipid, protein, and nucleic acids from the S cells to determine which transformed bacteria. They concluded DNA had to be the transforming principle. Most researches were surprised because they thought proteins were hereditary. They took a whole decade confirming their information. A fact is even after they discovered this, many people still did not believe and were unsure that this was true. -
Alfred Hershey & Martha Chase
They held experiments to find out the composition of the hereditary material that bacteriophage inject into bacteria. These were done because they knew that proteins have more sulfur than phosphorus and DNA has more phosphorus than sulfur. They proved that what was injected was DNA not protein. A fact is he won the Nobel Prize of Physiology or Medicine. -
Linus Pauling
He determined the helix shape of globular proteins which helped with more discoveries later in the DNA timeline It helped Watson and Crick with their big discovery. A fact is he has won two Nobel Prizes, one for chemistry and one was the Nobel peace prize. -
Erwin Chargaff
He is most known for his rules. The most important being that in natural DNA the number of guanine units is equal to the number of cytosine units and the number of adenine units is equal to the number of thymine units. A fact is that he was a professor at Columbia University. -
Barbara McClintock
She discovered that some genes could be mobile. She studied chromosome breakage which led to the discovery of chromosome-breaking locus that is able to change its position within a chromosome. She won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1983. -
Rosalind Franklin & Maurice Wilkins
They discovered the structure of DNA and the physical and chemical basis or how characteristics are passed down through generations using X-ray crystallography. This was the initial research before Watson and Cricks big discovery. A fact about them is that they did not get along well with each other sometimes. -
James Watson & Frances Crick
They studied the structure of DNA. All the research before by people had led them to this point. Based on all of its known structures, they discovered the double helix. A fact is that they used Franklin’s pictures and work without her permission to find their discovery. -
Frederick Sanger
He discovered that proteins were ordered molecules. He also found out that the DNA and molecules that make the proteins should have an order or sequence too. A fact is he won a Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1958. -
Matthew Meselson & Franklin Stahl
They performed experiments to show that DNA replicated semi-conservatively. This shows that each strand of DNA is a template for synthesis of a new strand. A fact is that their experiment was because of a debate in the 1950s by other scientists. -
Paul Berg
Berg discovered how to insert DNA from a bacterium into a virus’ DNA. He created the first molecule made from parts of different organisms. This discovery is known as “hybrid DNA”. He won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1980. -
Kary Mullis
She invented the process called polymerase chain reaction. This is where DNA can be copied into large quantities over a short period of time. She discovered this while working for Cetus Corporation in Emeryville, California. She died recently on August 7, 2019 at the age of 74. -
J. Craig Venter
He is known for being the leader of the first draft sequence of the human genome. He also made the first team to transfect a cell with a synthetic chromosome. He is the founder of a non profit organization.
