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Early manifestation
The name Molecular Biology was coined by Warren Weaver of Rockefeller Foundation in 1938 -
Connecting genetic with biochemistry
George Beadle and Edward Tatum worked inducing mutations by x-rays in bread mold Neurospora crassa. They showed that these mutations caused changes in specific enzymes involved in metabolic pathways. -
Genes are made up DNA
Oswald Avery, Colin McLeod and Maclyn McCarty demostrated that DNA is the substance that causes bacterial transformation. -
Bacteriophage is made up of DNA
Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase confirmed that the genetic material of the bacteriophage, the virus which infects bacteria, is made up of DNA -
The double helical structure of the DNA
Rosalind Franklin, James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the double helical structure of the DNA molecule -
A Protein is a unique sequence of aminoacids
Frederick Sanger sequenced bovine insulin, first chain A and B (1951-1952) and later the assembled structure due disulfid bonds in 1955 -
DNA polymerase
Arthur Kornberg and colleagues discovered DNA polymerase I (Pol I), in Escherichia coli. They described the DNA replication process by which DNA polymerase copies the base sequence of a template DNA strand. -
DNA replication is semiconservative
Matthew Meselson and Franklin Stahl in 1958 supported Watson and Crick's hypothesis that DNA replication was semiconservative. In semiconservative replication, when the double stranded DNA helix is replicated, each of the two new double-stranded DNA helices consisted of one strand from the original helix and one newly synthesized. -
The sequence of RNA
The group led by Robert Holley from Cornell University, who published the sequence of the 77 ribonucleotides of alanine tRNA from Saccharomyces cerevisiae in 1965. By 1967 Sanger's group had determined the nucleotide sequence of the 5S ribosomal RNA from Escherichia coli, a small RNA of 120 nucleotides. -
A Genetic Code
Har Gobind Khorana Marshall W. Nirenberg and Robert W. Holley shared the 1968 Nobel Prize for research that showed the order of nucleotides in nucleic acids, which carry the genetic code of the cell and control the cell's synthesis of proteins -
Manipulation by Restriction enzymes
Werner Arber, Daniel Nathans, and Hamilton O. Smith worked about Restriction enzymes, some of theirs are more useful for laboratory work as they cleave DNA at the site of their recognition sequence and are the most commonly used as a molecular biology tool -
Starting Genetic Engineering
Herbert Wayne "Herb" Boyer, Stanley N. Cohen and Paul Berg discovered a method to coax bacteria into producing foreign proteins, thereby jump starting the field of genetic engineering -
The first genetically modified animal
Rudolf Jaenisch and Beatrice Mintz showed that foreign DNA could be integrated into the DNA of early mouse embryos. They injected retrovirus DNA into early mouse embryos and showed that leukemia DNA sequences had integrated into the mouse genome and also to its offspring. These mice were the first transgenic mammals in history -
DNA Sequencing
Fred Sanger together with Alan Coulson, he published a sequencing procedure using DNA polymerase with radiolabelled nucleotides that he called the "Plus and Minus" technique. This involved two closely related methods that generated short oligonucleotides with defined 3' termini. These could be fractionated by electrophoresis on a polyacrylamide gel and visualised using autoradiography. -
Improving DNA Sequencing
Fred Sanger and colleagues introduced the "dideoxy" chain-termination method for sequencing DNA molecules, also known as the "Sanger method". This was a major breakthrough and allowed long stretches of DNA to be rapidly and accurately sequenced. The new method was used by Sanger and colleagues to sequence human mitochondrial DNA (16,569 base pairs) and bacteriophage λ (48,502 base pairs).The dideoxy method was eventually used to sequence the entire human genome. -
Polymerase chain reaction (PCR)
PCR was invented in 1983 by the American biochemist Kary Mullis at Cetus Corporation. It is fundamental to many of the procedures used in genetic testing and research, including analysis of ancient samples of DNA and identification of infectious agents. Using PCR, copies of very small amounts of DNA sequences are exponentially amplified in a series of cycles of temperature changes. -
Launching The Human Genome Project
The Human Genome Project (HGP) was an international scientific research project with the goal of determining the base pairs that make up human DNA, and of identifying and mapping all of the genes of the human genome from both a physical and a functional standpoint. It remains the world's largest collaborative biological project. Planning started after the idea was picked up in 1984 by the US government, the project formally launched in 1990 -
The first commercially grown genetically engineered food
Flavr Savr (also known as CGN-89564-2; pronounced "flavor saver"), a genetically modified tomato, was the first commercially grown genetically engineered food to be granted a license for human consumption. It was produced by the Californian company Calgene, and submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1992. On May 18, 1994 the FDA completed its evaluation -
The first mammalian cloning
Ian Wilmut and Keith Campbell create Dolly, a Finn-Dorset ewe, was the first mammal to have been successfully cloned from an adult somatic cell. Dolly was formed by taking a cell from the udder of her 6-year-old biological mother. Dolly's embryo was created by taking the cell and inserting it into a sheep ovum. -
The first commercialized genetically modified animal
The GloFish is a patented and trademarked brand of genetically engineered fluorescent fish. A variety of different GloFish are currently on the market. Zebrafish were the first GloFish available in pet stores, and are now sold in bright red, green, orange-yellow, blue, pink, and purple fluorescent colors -
A "complete" Human Genome
The Human Genome Project (HGP) was declared complete in April 2003. An initial rough draft of the human genome was available in June 2000 and by February 2001 a working draft had been completed and published followed by the final sequencing mapping of the human genome on April 14, 2003. Although this was reported to cover 99% of the euchromatic human genome with 99.99% accuracy, a major quality assessment of the human genome sequence was published on May 27, 2004 -
The first synthetic bacterial genome
The production of Synthia is an effort in synthetic biology at the J. Craig Venter Institute by a team of approximately 20 scientists headed by Nobel laureate Hamilton Smith and including DNA researcher Craig Venter and microbiologist Clyde A. Hutchison III. The overall goal is to reduce a living organism to its essentials and thus understand what is required to build a new organism from scratch -
Gene editing
Emmanuelle Charpentier Jennifer Doudna developed CRISPR-Cas9 technology that could be used to edit the genome with relative ease. Researchers worldwide have employed this method successfully to edit the DNA sequences of plants, animals, and laboratory cell lines. CRISPR has revolutionized genetics by allowing scientists to edit genes to probe their role in health and disease and to develop genetic therapies. -
The first genetically modified animal to be approved for food
On 25 November 2013, Environment Canada approved the product for salmon egg production for commercial purposes in Canada. In May 2016, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency approved the sale of the GM fish. In July 2017, AquaBounty Technologies said they had sold 4.5 tons of AquaAdvantage salmon fillets to customers in Canada -
The first human genetically edited babies
He Jiankui first announced on YouTube that his team successfully created the world's first genome-edited babies, Lulu and Nana. Formally presenting the story at the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing at the University of Hong Kong later, he said that the twins were born from genetically modified embryos that were made resistant to HIV. -
First massive test of a mRNA vaccine
mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines win emergency authorization
