-
Friedrich Miescher
Miesher was a def scientist who devoted his career toward his work. He discovered that DNA was composed of Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen, and Phosphate by testing the pus from a bandage. -
Fredrick Griffith
Griffith was a British bacteriologist who attempted to find a cure to pneumonia. Through his experiment, he proved that good bacteria could turn into bad bacteria (transferring genetic information) through the transforming principle. -
Rosalind Franklin, and Maurice Wilkins
These two were partners who worked at King’s College. Rosalind was a crystallographer who took pictures of molecules. She was the first person to take an accurate picture of DNA (this is the picture below). They won the Nobel prize for their contributions to science. -
Oswald Avery, Maclyn McCarty, and Colin McCleod
Together, these scientists began to understand and confirmed Griffith’s transforming principle by testignhis experiment again. They also discovered that DNA was a nucleic acid. -
Barbara McClintock
McClinton proved through experiments that chromosomes carry genetics, confirming the idea with her cytogenic techniques. She went on to observe alleles to show that there is no specific pattern in genome replication. -
Linus Pauling
This scientist was known as the “founder of molecular biology” because he discovered that proteins have a spiral structure and the double helix of DNA. He made it possible for scientists to find the DNA code for every organism in existence. In the photo, you will see Griffith's diagram of DNA. -
Erwin Chargraff
This scientist was an Austro-Hungarian biochemist who discovered two important rules contributing to the discovery of the DNA double helix. He worked with base pairing (Adenine and Thymine always are paired, and Guanine and Cytosine are always together). There is always an equal amount of the pair. Also, different organisms have different amounts of each nitrogen base (A, T, C, and G). -
Alfred Hershey
These scientists worked on an experiment known as the “blender” experiment. The purpose of this experiment was to prove that DNA was a genetic material. -
James Watson and Francis Crick
These two used x-rays and built models to solve the mystery of DNA’s structure. They discovered that DNA had a double helix shape. -
Matthew Meselson and Franklin Stahl
Melanson and Stohl confirmed Watson and Crick’s DNA structure of the double helix. Meleson and Stahl’s experiment explains how DNA replicates. To do this, they modified molecules so that they had different densities, then separated the molecules by their densities. -
Kary Mullis
Mullis invented a process called polymerase chain reaction (PCR). This process copies small amounts of DNA into large amounts shortly. The DNA strands separate with heat and with an enzyme called DNA polymerase, new DNA is created and the process can repeat. -
Paul Berg
This scientist was part of the navy. He discovered a new enzyme that helps create nucleic acids and acyl-adenylates. -
Frederick Sanger
He developed the “dideoxy” method for DNA Sequencing. This was the method used to determine the sequencing of countless nucleotides. -
J. Craig Venter
Venter served in the Navy during the Vietnam war. There, he gained an interest in science. He developed a method for finding genes that were cheaper and faster than the Human Genome Project. He also developed whole genome shotgun sequencing. In only 3 years, he assembled the human genome.
