1655
Robert Hooke, an English scientist, discovers cells by examining thin slices of cork under a compound microscope that he designed. He uses the term “cells” because they remind him of the cells in a monastery.
1857
Gregor Mendel, an Austrian monk and scientist, crosses different varieties of pea plants. He observes that certain traits of pea plants are passed down from the parent plants and that these traits can be mathematically predicted. He becomes known as ”the Father of Modern Genetics.”
1859
Charles Darwin, an English naturalist, publishes his book The Origin of Species which describes and presents evidence demonstrating how species evolve through a process called natural selection.
1866
Gregor Mendel publishes his paper describing the results of his experiments with pea plants. This paper presents his laws of inheritance known as Mendel’s Laws.
1869
Sir Francis Galton, an English biologist and cousin of Charles Darwin, publishes his book Hereditary Genius. This book discusses the idea that mental and physical abilities are inherited traits.
1882
Walther Fleming, a German biologist, uses a stain to dye cells and visualize structures in the cell nucleus that he calls chromosomes. He observes and describes the activity of chromosomes through the stages of cell division and names this process mitosis.
1886
Hugo de Vries, a Dutch botanist introduces the term “mutations” to describe suddenly appearing variations that he observes in primroses.
1887
Edouard van Beneden, a Belgian biologist, discovers that the number of chromosomes is the same among organisms within a species. He also discovers and names meiosis.
1900
Hugo de Vries, Carl Correns, and Erich von Tschermak are all credited for the rediscovery of Mendel’s laws.
1902
Walter Sutton, an American biologist, discovers the relationship between chromosomes and inheritance. In 1903, he publishes a paper describing his findings, including the discovery that chromosome pairs split during meiosis providing one chromosome to the sperm and one to the egg.
1905
Nettie Stevens and Edmund Wilson independently discover the role of the X and Y chromosome in the determination of the sex of an organism.
1911
Thomas Hunt Morgan, an American biologist, publishes a paper concluding that genes for traits occur on specific chromosomes. He also shows that some genes are sex-linked and are found on sex chromosomes. These conclusions are a result of his work with the fruit fly Drosophelia.
1913
Alfred Henry Sturtevant, an American biologist, constructs the first genetic map of a chromosome by working with Drosophelia in the laboratory of Thomas Morgan.
1931
Harriet Creighton and Barbara McClintock discover that chromosomes exhibit crossover during meiosis to form new variants in traits.
1941
George Beadle and Edward Tatum prove through their experiments with bread mold that one gene directs the synthesis of one enzyme.
1944
Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod, and Maclyn McCarty use experiments with bacteria to identify DNA as the chemical responsible for carrying the information responsible for inherited traits.
1953
Francis Crick and James Watson use X-ray diffraction pictures of DNA created by Rosalind Franklin to derive the 3-dimensional, double helical structure of a DNA molecule.
1956
Arthur Kornberg isolates DNA polymerase, an enzyme involved in the synthesis of DNA.
1966
Marshall Nirenberg, Robert Holley, and Har Gobind Khorana crack the genetic code. They discover the principle that codons, consisting of three nucleotides, on mRNA molecules code for the 20 amino acids needed to build proteins.
1972
Paul Berg creates the first recombinant DNA molecules. This lays the groundwork for recombinant genetic engineering. He inserts bacterial DNA into viral DNA and shows, as the virus replicates in cells, the bacterial genes are also expressed.
1973
Herb Boyer and Stanley Cohen introduce recombinant DNA technology.
1976
Genentech is founded by Robert Swanson and Herb Boyer. Genetech uses recombinant DNA technology for the purpose of creating new types of drugs to fight disease.
1982
FDA approves recombinant human insulin, the first recombinant DNA drug. It has a great impact on the treatment of diabetes and almost eliminates the need for animal donors for the production of insulin.
1983
Barbara McClintock wins the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine “for her discovery of mobile genetic elements.”
1986
Leroy Hood, an American Biologist and co-founder of several biotechnology companies, invents the first automated DNA sequencer.
Late 1980’s
The legal community begins to accept and use DNA as evidence in criminal cases to clear suspects and to convict criminals.
1990
The Human Genome Project formally begins. It is a joint project between the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health to identify, sequence, and store in a database all the genes in the human genome.
1990
The first gene therapy procedure is performed on a four year old girl who was born with an immune system deficiency.
1994
Flavr Savr, a genetically modified tomato, becomes the first genetically engineered food to be commercially grown and sold.
1996
Dolly, the sheep, is born. She becomes the first animal to be cloned from an adult somatic cell rather than an embryonic cell.
1999
Drosophila melanogaster’s entire genome is sequenced and assembled.
2003
The Human Genome Project is complete.
2006
Sequence of the last human chromosome is published.