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After joining a monestary and making the decision to begin studying plants and their variations, Gregor Mendel starts experimenting with genetic traits in pea plants. Through a long series of these experiments, Mendel discovered that genitic traits were passed down from first generation to second generation fairly easily and predictably.
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Francis Crick and James Watson worked togather to study x-ray crystallographic images and models. They pet these models togather to create the double-helix, or DNA's structure.
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Plasmids, which are found inside some DNA, are discovered to be able to replicate some forms of genes. The process of extracting these plasmids is discovered, and called 'plasmid purification.'
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Paul Berg began experimenting with crude genetic engineering projects. Through these experiments, Berg discovers how to insert DNA from one species, successfully, into another molecule. This was called recombinant DNA.
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Genetic scientists Herbert Boyer and Stanley Cohen invent DNA cloning. DNA cloning is isolating a single DNA molecule, then replicating and multiplying that particular type of DNA.
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After being approved by the FDA, insulin, the first ever marketed recombinant DNA product, is put on consumer shelves. The drug was first called Humulin.
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The process of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is invented, which creates many copies of specific genes. The inventor, Kary Mullis, used heat and enzymes to make this process work.
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DNA microarrays are invented to help measure the process that a gene is used within certain other processes. Microarrays are also called DNA chips, or biochips.
