People in the history of DNA

Friedrich Miescher was the first person to work on DNA. In 1869 he found DNA when working on leucocytes, while investigating the protein cells he found an unexpected properties that did not match those of proteins. He originally called DNA “nuclein.” At this point of time there was little or no research on DNA.

Thomas Hunt Morgan in 1908 discovered the chromosome theory by experimenting with white-eye fruits flies and breeding them red-eye fruit flies and studying the eye colour of their offspring. At this point in time the research of DNA was up to the work from Bateson and Punnett about how some genes are linked and do not show independent assortment.

Fredrick Griffith in 1928 perform an experiment demonstrating that bacteria are capable of transferring genetic information this is called transformation. In the experiment he used mice, non-virulent/rough strain and virulent/smooth strain to see at what condition the mice would die under if injected with the strains. At this point of time the research of DNA was up to H. Muller’s x-rays that show induce mutations in a dose dependent fashion.

Erwin Chargaff in 1950 discovered two rules to prove that DNA had a double helical structure. The 1st rule is that DNA had equal percentage of adenine to thymine and equal percentage of guanine to cytosine. The 2nd rule is adenine and thymine are always paired and can’t be cross paired, the same with guanine and cytosine. At the time the research of DNA was at the point where people had just proven that genic material can be transferred between bacterial cells and DNA passes physical and mental characteristics through different generations.

Maurice Wilkins originally studied biological molecules like DNA and viruses using microscopes. However, in 1951 he started working with Franklin producing x-rays of DNA, which helped Watson and crick develop their model of DNA. The research was up to Chargaff rules at the time.

Rosalind Franklin in 1951 she took x-rays of diffraction images of DNA that showed the helical form of the molecule. Her discovery helped Watson and Crick form their model of DNA. At time the research was up to Chargaff rules on how DNA has a double helical structure.

James Watson and Francis Crick worked together in 1953 to build the first three dimensional model of a DNA structure which helped other scientist understand DNA more thoroughly. At this point in time the research on DNA was up to Chargaff rules about DNA having a double helical structure.

Frederick Sanger found that DNA contains thousands of small chemical units called nucleotides. He developed techniques for the sequencing of nucleotides. By 1977 he sequenced approximately 5000 nucleotides along one strand of DNA from a bacterial virus. At this point of time the research for DNA was up to the first structure by Cohen and Boyer of recombinant DNA.