Contributions to DNA

By CS53107

  • Friedrich Miescher

    Friedrich Miescher
    DNA was first discovered by Friedrich Miescher in 1869 who was a Swiss physician and biologist. He discovered nucleic acids and was the first scientist who isolated nucleic acids from cell nuclei.

  • Phoebus Levene

    Phoebus Levene
    In 1909, he isolated the five-carbon sugar d-ribose from the ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecule in addition to the nucleotides, the fundamental components of the nucleic acid molecule. He discovered nucleotides were composed by a five-carbon sugar, a phosphate group (PO4), and one of four possible nitrogen bases – adenine, cytosine, guanine, or thymine.

  • Frederick Griffith

    Frederick Griffith
    A British bacteriologist, Frederick Griffith's 1928 bacteria experiment was the first to demonstrate the "transforming principle," which led to the realisation that DNA serves as the carrier of genetic information.

  • Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod, and Maclyn McCarty

    By demonstrating that DNA, not proteins, can alter a cell's characteristics, Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod, and Maclyn McCarty were able to elaborate on the chemical components of genes. While researching the pneumonia-causing bacteria Streptococcus pneumoniae, Avery, MacLeod, and McCarty named DNA the "transforming principle."

  • Erwin Chargaff

    Erwin Chargaff
    Adenine (A) to thymine (T) and guanine (G) to cytosine (C) ratios in DNA are equal, according to Erwin Chargaff's research. The final DNA structure makes this parity clear.

  • Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase

    Hershey and Chase came to the conclusion that DNA, not protein, contained genetic information. The Hershey-Chase investigations were more widely and swiftly accepted among scientists than Avery's studies on bacterial changes.

  • Linus Pauling and Robert Brainard Corey

    In their article "A Postulated Structure for the Nucleic Acids," also known as "Nucleic Acids," published in February 1953 at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, physicists Linus Pauling and Robert Brainard Corey proposed a structure for deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA.

  • Rosalind Franklin

    Rosalind Franklin
    Dr. Rosalind Franklin's X-ray diffraction research at King's College contributed to the 1953 discovery of the DNA structure. Deoxyribonucleic acid, the molecule encoding the genetic instructions for the growth of all living species, has a double-helix structure, as proved by her construction of the iconic Photo 51.

  • James Watson and Francis Crick

    In a second paper in Nature, which was released on May 30, 1953, Watson and Crick expanded on their theories regarding DNA replication. The two had demonstrated that DNA's double stranded structure serves both as a vehicle for genetic information and as proof that form truly does follow function.