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Friedrich Miescher
Miescher isolated nuclein (nucleic acids) DNA with associated proteins, from cell nuclei. He was the first to identify DNA as a distinct molecule by isolating white blood cells. He raised the idea that nucleic acids could be involved in heredity. -
Frederick Griffith
Frederick Griffith experimented, resulting in suggestions that bacteria are capable of transferring genetic information through a process known as transformation. His main focus was on epidemiology and pathology of bacterial pneumonia. He concluded using mice that the harmless R-strain of bacteria was changed into a disease causing bacteria by the DNA of the dead harmful S-strand. -
Barbara McClintock
McClintock researched the chromosomal structure of corn using a microscope and published a famous paper that established chromosomes form the base of genetics. She further researched how they change during reproduction in maize. -
Oswald Avery, Maclyn McCarty, & Colin McCleod
The partners worked together to identified deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) as the "transforming principle" responsible for specific characteristics in bacteria. He also discovered that DNA carries a cell's genetic information. -
Linus Pauling
Pauling used X-ray diffraction to confirm the message from his chemical origami: proteins, the basic molecules of life, exist as helixes. He also discovered the alpha-helix, which became a major variety of protein helix. -
Erwin Chargaff
Chargaff established two rules that would later lead to the discovery of the structure of DNA- the amounts of adenine and thymine in DNA were roughly the same, as were the amounts of cytosine and guanine. This later became known as the first of Chargaff's rules. -
Alfred Hershey & Martha Chase
They concluded that DNA, not protein, was the genetic material. They determined that a protective protein coat was formed around the bacteriophage, but that the internal DNA is what conferred its ability to produce progeny inside a bacterium. -
James Watson & Frances Crick
They worked together to publish an academic paper proposing the double helix structure of the DNA molecule, the twisted ladder of DNA. They were awarded the Nobel prize "for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material". -
Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins
The two worked together to determine the structure of DNA. Franklin created X-ray diffraction images of DNA, which she became to be widely known for. Both of their work lead to the later development of radar. -
Paul Berg
Berg made one of the first results of technology developed methods by splitting DNA molecule at selected sites attaching segments of the molecule to DNA of a virus, which then entered bacteria cells. Berg’s gene-splicing experiment resulted in the first man-made recombinant DNA. -
Matthew Meselson & Franklin Stahl
The two worked together to proposed a revised model of genetic recombination that accounted for the formation of an asymmetric heteroduplex Meselson-radding model by composing a world-famous experiment, Meselson-Stahl experiment, that proved that DNA replication was semiconservative. In addition, Meselson and Stahl decided the best way to tag the parent DNA would be to change one of the Atoms in the parent DNA. -
Kary Mullis
Mullis developed a method of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) that only uses only 4 ingredients instead of the past long and tedious methods. In addition, PCR became to be an important tool in DNA sequencing. -
J. Craig Venter
Venter drafted the first sequence of the human genome. He also assembled the first team to transfect a cell with a synthetic chromosome. In addition, his first wife sequenced a genome of Mycoplasm genitaliation.
