The Discovery of DNA - Subash, Akshaya

Friedrich Miescher

1869

Friedrich Miescher was born in Basel, and he graduated from the University of Tubingen. He was the first scientist to identify DNA as a molecule. I found it interesting how he associated DNA with proteins.

Frederick Griffith

1928

Frederick Griffith was a British bacteriologist who was born in England. He conducted an experiment which led to the discovery that DNA carries genetic information. I found it interesting how the mice died when injected with live S bacteria.

Barbara McClintock

1940

Barbara McClintock was an american scientist who discovered that certain genes could be mobile. Her studies led to a discovery of a chromosome that could change its position within itself. I was interested in how genes could move.

Oswald Avery, Maclyn McCarty & Colin McCleod

1944

Oswald Avery, Maclyn McCarty, and Colin McCleod proved that DNA can transform the properties of cells. They showed that DNA can transfer from different strains of bacteria combining both characteristics.

Erwin Chargaff

1949

Erwin Chargaff was a scientist born in Ukraine. He created two different rules, in the natural DNA the number of guanine units equals the number of cytosine units and the number of adenine units equals the number of thymine units. I found it interesting how the proportion of bases in DNA changed what the scientists believed

Linus Pauling

1950

Linus Pauling is best known for working out the natures of chemical bonds. He is known as the founder of molecular biology because of his discovery in the structure of proteins. I found it interesting how his discoveries contributed/helped prove Crick & Watson’s DNA helix.

Alfred Hershey & Martha Chase

1952

Alfred Hershey & Martha Chase performed an experiment that showed DNA transferred from bacteriophages to bacteria. I liked how this experiment proved that DNA holds genetic information.

Rosalind Franklin & Maurice Wilkins

1953

Maurice Wilkins was the first scientist to isolate fibers of DNA. Franklin discovered the density of DNA, and she created Photo 51 to capture images of this.

James Watson & Francis Crick

1953

James Watson & Frances Crick were the first scientists to discover the double helix structure of DNA. I found it interesting that DNA replicates itself into separate strands, and then becomes a double helix.

Frederick Sanger

1955

He was the first person to obtain a protein sequence. He then proved that proteins were ordered molecules, and the genes and DNA that make proteins should have a sequence as well.

Matthew Meselson & Franklin Stahl

1958

Matthew Meselson & Franklin Stahl invented the technique of density gradient and proved that DNA can reproduce. I found it fascinating that they found a method to prove how something can duplicate.

Paul Berg

1972

Paul Berg inserted DNA from a bacterium into a virus DNA. He was the scientist to create the first DNA molecule made of parts from many different organisms. I found it interesting that you can combine different organisms.

J. Craig Venter

1984

J. Craig Venter was an American biotechnologist who discovered the EST, (expressed sequence tags) a technique to discover genes.

Kary Mullis

1985

Kary Mullis invented the process called polymerase chain reaction, where a little bit of DNA can be copied and made larger over a short period of time. I found it surprising that Mullis invented PCR during work at a corporation.