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Friedrich Miescher
Miescher determined DNA is not a protein, rich in nitrogen and phosphorus. He discovered deoxyribonucleic acid. Miescher discovered a substance containing both phosphorus and nitrogen in the nuclei of white blood cells found in pus. -
Frederick Griffith
He performed experiment on mice. Injected them w/ 2 different strains of bacteria (1 rough and 1 smooth) He concluded that the R bacteria must have taken up a "transforming principle" from the S bacteria, which allowed them to "transform" into smooth-coated bacteria and become virulent. He worked at the Liverpool Royal Infirmary, the Joseph Tie Laboratory, and the Royal Commission on Tuberculosis. -
Linus Pauling
Pauling developed an electronegativity scale in which he assigned a number representing a particular atom’s power of attracting electrons in a covalent bond. He was awarded the ACS Award in Pure Chemistry in 1931. -
Oswald Avery, Maclyn McCarty, and Colin Macleod
They identified Griffith's "transforming principle." as DNA. Near the end of 1943, Avery, Macleod, and McCarty submitted their work for publication in the Journal of Experimental Medicine. It was published the following year. -
Erwin Chargaff
He discovered that adenine and thymine are identical, and guanine and cytosine are identical. This is called Chargaff’s rule. He became an American citizen in 1940. -
Barbara McClintock
She discovered that genes could move, from there she discovered controlling genes which has control over the genes that controls pigments. When she first discovered it, most scientists did not take her discoveries seriously. -
Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase
They determined that the DNA component of the bacteriophages is injected into the bacterial cell while the protein component remains outside. However, it is the injected component — DNA — that is able to direct the formation of new virus particles complete with protein coats. Once the Hershey–Chase experiment was published, the scientific community generally acknowledged that DNA was the genetic code material. -
Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins
They worked together at King’s, and they had a very poor relationship. Rosalind managed to take the first clear x-ray diffraction image of crystalized DNA. -
James Watson and Frances Crick
They discovered the structure of DNA. They also created a double helix model from Photo 51. This discovery paved the way for many of things now in modern day. -
Matthew Meselsen and Franklin Stahl
They found out DNA divided evenly, contained one parental subunit , and every parental DNA made, two new ones were made in the replication of DNA. Their findings supported Watson’s and Crick’s findings, yet it took a long time before other scientist believed them. -
Paul Berg
Berg was known for his gene splicing experiment. Where two separate DNAs were cut and put near enzymes where they combined creating man-made rDNA. The public were scared that mutations would occur and cause threatening diseases. -
Frederick Sanger
He created the Sanger method, to figure out the order of the bases in a single strand of DNA. He also won a Nobel prize in Chemistry for his DNA sequencing methods. -
Kary Mullis
He discovers the polymerase chain reaction, which allows for many copies of a specific fragment of DNA, very useful for experimentation. He won a Nobel prize for this in 1993. -
J. Craig Venter
He created “expressed sequence tags”, a new way to tag genes. Which allowed for distinction between different genes. He received the Beckham award in 1999 for his discovery.