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On-line publication
Title	History of Biology
Authors	Jong H. Park
Contact	j@bio.cc, BiO Centre, Cambridge, UK, +44 1223 524889
Paper ID	BiO20030320.00002
Refer this as	J. Park, (2003), The history of Biology, BiO On-line publication. UniqueBioPaperNumber (UBIPAN): BiO20030320.00003 http://bio.cc/Biology/history_of_biology.html
Publication Date	2003. March. 20th.
Paper Type	non-research paper.
Intellectual Property	(L) Copyleft. Please refer to the above URL for reference.
Related Papers	History of Bioinformatics
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Abstract:

The history of biology in a chronological order presented. The aim of the history of biology to let the new learners have a more wider and practical information toward their research in biology. The examination of the history shows that biological development and innovations had a peak at around 1800-1950s in terms of major discoveries on the fundamentals of biological organisms such as the verification of proteins, DNA, cellular structures and other molecules. From 1960s, biology saw a great number of applications and techniques indicating that the academic discipline was moving toward technological and industrial field with explosion of knowlege, interactions with other disciplines and techniques.

 

Main

The history of biology, before Christ, and before the discovery of genetic inheritance by G. Mendel in 1865, is sketch and inaccurate. Also, there is a significant bias toward the Far Western civilizations. This is partly because the development of biological science overall was a part of every day living for human beings and certain cultures did not regard achievements as historically distinct events. Particularly, the cultures in the East such as China, Korea and Japan had a different philosophy on intellectual properties that caused that not many originators are known. Not only that they regard inventions, discoveries and advancement more as a global social networking, but also officially, there were limited number of social classes who had the right to enscribe names. For example, even if tens of scholars invented the writing system of Korea possibly based on already ancient predessesors, it is regarded as the king who ordered to make it was the inventor. There are numerous such cases. Also, the achievements can survive mostly through cultural interitance rather than well documented books. Furthermore, strong central imperialism often destoryed invaluable books, historical records, momuments and buildings. The fact that the Far Eastern culture was a wood culture while the Far Western was a stone culture contributed a lot in the preservation of historical records. Remaining records are usually by later people who reorganized the older discoveries and developments transmitted through various unsystematic ways. Therefore, it is a reasonable rule of thumb that the known dicoveries in those regions are usually older than the recorded. This is quite contradictory to the Far Western culture where more individualistic and egoistic trends dominiate. The Far Westerners actively take up, mark their names, guard, claim (even steal actively) and preserve the records for scientific and political purposes. It is partly based on the competitive economical and political arena they belonged to. Different monary systems in the Far West provided resource and protection for their own selfish gaines. Sometimes, scientists had to sell their names and technologies to them. It is interesting how the distinct cultural machinery resulted in very different historical understanding of the science, development, society and the world as a whole. The Far Western enterprenuership of promoting their own individualistic, tribal, national, racial, religious and cultural interest as one of the most important sources of understanding the world. While the much more tight social networking of the East rarely encourages the attribution of major achivements to individuals. In a scientific perspective, it is more accurate to attribute the achievement to the whole network of people and resource. However, in a historical point of view, it is more convenient to attribute to individuals. For example, putting the pythagrian theorem to a person's name is more convenient for historians even if the actual work could well have been the collaborative effort of a whole school and surely affected by previous indeas, insights and knowledge orginated from different people. 

Therefore, this older part of the history and pre-history should be viewed as a rough guide to show how much ancient people knew about life.The later part where precise names and credits are recorded by modern people also have a lot of controversy. It shows that majority of claims and credits have some kind of disputes. Such disputes on scientific and engineering achievement should be eliminated. A better poligy and paradigm for attributing achiement is necessary in the future.

 

Methods:

Sources

The events are collected from Internet sites, published journal articles, and books.

Precision and Accuracy.

The preciseness of the events are completely dependent on the reliability of the data. For example, the domestication of dogs was very controversal and many Westerners claimed that it was clearly occurred in middle East area. However, recent mitchondrial study showed that it is more likely to be in the Far East. The criterion applied in finalising the data is bases on how rigorous the scientific methods were. MtDNA test is more likely to be accurate than some fossil records and conjectures based on the distribution of sub-species of dogs at present times.

Controvesy

Controversal cases such as the contribution of the development of the idea of gravity by Issac Newton and Robert Hooke is a major problem of the history of biology and science. The political and egoistic influence of individuals in the history is estimated to be tremendous. There can be much wrong data purely some scientists were less interested in insisting on the their own contributions with many reasons such as disgust toward more aggressive and self-promoting ones, lack of interest in such external recognition and pure altruism. Scienctists have been strongly political throughout the history contrary to the general perception of their objectiveness, honesty, fairness and alruistic behaviours by the public. This is partly due to the Western culture's strong recognition on individuals' contribution to the development of humanity. This report's philosophy (the highest level decision principle) is to minimize such bias toward more politically active inventors and scientists. In other words, the most factual data in the widest aspects are sought after. For example, even though Gutenberg's contribution of inventing movable types and printing machine has contributed significantly to the European social, religoius, scientific and political development, he is regarded as an enterpreneur rather than the original thinker or inventor. Recording name for the invention for the humanity will be akin to recording William Gates of Microsoft as the inventor of modern computer operating system (OS) because 99% of the public in China may not know that there were other OSs.

Results:

Geo-biological Events of Earth

c. 4,800,000,000 B.C.: The Earth formed.

c. 3,600,000,000 B.C.: Life form appeared.

c. 2,500,000,000 B.C.: oxygen-forming photosynthesis

c. 2,200,000,000 B.C.: aerobic respiration

c. 1,500,000,000 B.C.: Eukaryotes appeared.

c. 6,500,000 B.C.: Hominid appears.[ref_1]

Pre-historical and Historical events B.C.

c. 15,000 B.C.:     The dog domesticated in the northern East of Asia. Science 2002 Nov 22;298(5598):1610-3, Savolainen P, Zhang YP, Luo J, Lundeberg J, Leitner T., Genetic evidence for an East Asian origin of domestic dogs.

c. 12,000 - 5000 B.C.:  Common grains and domestic animals such as millet, rice, potatoes, pumpkins, cattle, pigs, sheep, horses etc domesticated in Asia.

c. 6,000 B.C.:      Yeast used by Sumerians and Babylonians to make beer.

c. 4,000 B.C.:      Egyptians discovered how to bake leavened bread using yeast.

c. 3,000  B.C.:     Tooth filling performed in Sumer.

c. 2,700  B.C.:     Silkworm cultivation started in China.

c. 2,500 B.C.:      Egyptian carvings depicted surgery.

c. 2,000 B.C.:      Egyptians introduced a form of contraceptive.

c. 1,100 B.C.:      First zoo founded in China, the Park of Intelligence.

c. 800 B.C.:       Medical training in India uses anatomical models.

c. 535 B.C.:      Human cadaver dissected for scientific study by Greek physician Alcmaeon.

c. 500: The     Chinese use moldy soybean curds as an antibiotic to treat boils (biotechnology)

c. 500 B.C.:      First known cataract operation performed by Susrata in India.

c. 500 B.C.: Xenophanes examined fossils and speculated on the evolution of life.

c. 400:     Hippocrates founds profession of medicine. Hippocrates determined that the male contribution to a child's heredity is carried in the semen.

c. 350 B.C.:       Aristotle groups 500 known species of animals into eight classes.

c. 330  B.C.:      Theophrastus of Eresus described more than 550 plants.

c. 320 B.C.:       Aristotle states that male provides form and the female the raw material for offspring.

c. 300 B.C.:       First anatomy book written by Greek physician Diocles.

c. 190  B.C.:      Galen extracts plant juices for medicinal purposes.

c. 180  B.C.:      Galen accumulates all known medical knowledge of time in a treatise.

c. 100 B.C.:       Romans speculated that mares can be fertilized by the wind.

A.D.

~40:        Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides describes medical properties of 600 plants.

~50:        Pliny the Elder describes all known about zoology at the time.

~100:    Powdered chrysanthemum is used in China as an insecticide (biotechnology)

541:         Bubonic plague strikes Europe and continues until 544.

977:         First known hospital founded in Baghdad.

1000:         Hindus observed that certain diseases may "run in the family."

1266:         Roger Bacon proclaims importance of experimentation in science.

1275:         William of Saliceto - "Chirurgia" earliest record of human dissection.

1300:         Urine examination used for medical diagnosis.

1303:         Bernard of Gordon - first medical reference to spectacles

1333:         Botanical garden founded in Venice, Italy.

1403:         Compilation of Chinese encyclopedia in 22,937 volumes.

1440:         Nicholas of Cusa grinds spectacle lenses for both nearsighted and farsighted.

1444:         Cosimo de’Medici founds medical library in Florence.

1480:         Leonardo da Vinci uses dissection to study human muscles, bones and heart.

c. 1500: Leonardo da Vinci compared animal nutrition to the burning of a candle, and pointed out that animals could not survive in an atmosphere that would not support combustion.

1509:         First attempts to restrict medical practice to licensed doctors.

1517:         Naturalist Pierre Belon notes similarities between bones of fish and mammals.

1520:         Smallpox decimates the Aztec people.

1543:         Andreas Vesalius writes first printed book on anatomy.

1544:         Luca Hgini publishes the first herbarium.

1559:         Realdo Colombo describes circulation of blood through lungs.

1560:         Gabriel Fallopius discovers Fallopian tubes.

1580:         Prospero Alpini detects plant sexuality (male and female).

1590:         Z. and H. Janssen produce first compound microscope.

1596:         Li Shi-Chen describes 8000 medicinal uses of 1000 plants and 1000 animals.

1609:         Galileo Galilei builds a microscope.

1620:         Francis Bacon details importance of scientific method.

1624:         Jan Baptista van Helmont does quantitative study of growth of willow tree.

1628:         William Harvey traces circulation of blood throughout body.

1647:         First records of yellow fever in the Americas.

1651:         William Harvey suggest all living things originate from eggs.

1660:         Marcello Malpighi discovers capillaries with microscope.

1663:         Francesco Redi introduces concept of experimental control.

1665:     Robert Hooke published Micrographia, a collection of diverse essays dealing with the microscopic structure of familiar substances, among which the cellular structure of cork is fully described and illustrated. He also described microscopic examinations of fossilized plants and animals, comparing their microscopic structure to that of the living organisms they resembled. He argued for an organic origin of fossils, and suggested a plausible mechanism for their formation.

1668:         Francesco Redi disproves spontaneous generation of maggots.

1677:         Anton van Leeuwenhoek discovers mammalian sperm; he thinks they are human larvae.

1683:         Anton van Leeuwenhoek observes bacteria; significance not understood for 175 years.

1691:         John Ray maintains fossils are remains of extinct creatures.

1694: J.R. Camerarius does pollination experiments and discovers sex in flowering plants

1701:         Pylarini intentionally gives children mild smallpox to prevent a serious case later in life.

1705:         Stephen Hales measures blood pressure in humans and sap pressure in plants.

1714:         Dominique Anel invents fine-pointed syringe for surgical purposes.

1724:         Cross-fertilization in corn was discovered.

1735:         Carolus Linnaeus introduces a classification system for organisms.

1740:         Charles Bonnet recognizes that aphids reproduce parthenogenetically.

1745:     Maupertuis, Pierre Louis Moreau de (1745). Venus physique. La Haye, Natural variation and selection give rise to functional design: "Could one not say that, in the fortuitous combinations of the productions of nature, as there must be some characterized by a certain relation of fitness which are able to subsist, it is not to be wondered at that this fitness is present in all the species that are currently in existence? Chance, one would say, produced an innumerable multitude of individuals; a small number found themselves constructed in such a manner that the parts of the animal were able to satisfy its needs; in another infinitely greater number, there was neither fitness nor order: all of these latter have perished. Animals lacking a mouth could not live; others lacking reproductive organs could not perpetuate themselves... The species we see today are but the smallest part of what blind destiny has produced...".

1748:         John Needham seems to prove spontaneous generation of microorganisms.

1758: Carolus Linnaeus (Carl von Linne published Systema Naturae, in which he introduced many of the concepts and conventions that are still used by taxonomists today.

1761:         First veterinary school founded in Lyons France.

1761-1767:     JG Kolreuter finds in experiments on Nicotiana that each parent contributes equally to the characteristics of the offspring.

1768:         Lazzaro Sapllanzani disproves spontaneous generation of microorganisms.

1771:         Joseph Priestly shows life-supporting ability of plants.

1779:         Jan Ingenhousz discovers plants absorb oxygen at night and C0₂ during day.

1780:         Luigi Galvani finds muscular action is related to electrical phenomena.

1789:         Antoine Jussieu publishes modern classification of plants.

1793:         Christian Konrad Sprengel explains plant fertilization in detail.

1794:         Elisa Mangus Fries writes one of the first standard works on fungi.

1797:    Jenner inoculates a child with a viral vaccine to protect him from smallpox.

1798:         T. R. Malthus publishes An Essay on the Principle of Population.

1798:     Edward Jenner gives first account of vaccination to prevent smallpox.

1800:     Karl Friedrich Burdach of Estonian origan coined the term "biology" to denote the study of human morphology, physiology and psychology.

1801:     Jean Baptiste de Lamarck elaborated a theory of evolution based on heritable modification of organs through continued use and loss through disuse.

1803         John Otto conducts first wild bird banding studies.

1804         Nicholas de Saussure shows plants require nitrogen from the soil.

1804:     A. D. Thaer introduces rotation of crops.

1808:         John Dalton develops atomic theory - all matter composed of invisible atoms.

1809:         J. B. de Monet Lamarck suggests acquired characteristics transmitted to offspring.

1810:         Francois Appert develops techniques for canning food.

1818:     WC Wells suggests natural selection in African populations (for their relative resistance to local diseases)

1817:         Chlorophyll isolated by Pierre Pelletier and Joseph Bienaime Caventou.

1820:         C. F. Nasse describes the sex-linked mode of inheritance of hemophilia in humans.

1822:         Jean Lamarck distinguishes between invertebrates and vertebrates.

1822-1824:     TA Knight, J Goss, and A Seton independently do studies in peas and observe the dominance, recessiveness and segregation in the first filial generation, but did not detect regularities

1825:     F. V. Raspail uses iodine to identify starch.

1827:     William Prout divides foodstuffs into carbohydrates, fat, and protein.

1827:     K. E. von Baer gives first accurate description of the human egg.

1828:     Karl Ernst von Baer publishes The Embryology of Animals

1828:         Friedrich Wholer synthesizes organic substance (urea) from inorganic compounds.

1830:     GB Amici shows that the pollen tube grows down the style and into the ovule of the flower; Charles Lyell publishes his multi-volume Principles of Geology

1831:         Robert Brown discovers the nucleus in the cell.

1831:       Charles Darwin sails on H.M.S. Beagle.

1832:         Thomas Hodgkin describes Hodgkin's disease, a cancer of the lymph nodes.

1832:       Marshall Hall studies reflex arc in nerve cells.

1833:         First isolation of an enzyme by Anselme Payen.

1834:         First mercury dental filling used.

1838:         Matthias Jakob Schleiden & Theodor Schwann establish cell theory.

1838:     Gerardus Johannes Mulder, characterization of protein: abundant, water-soluble, nitrogenous "complex... regulates cell metabolism... most important component of living matter... without it, life would not be possible". Hydrolysis of protein => amino acids (~20 kinds). Mulder carried out the first systematic studies of proteins. Mulder coined the term "protein".

1839:     MJ Schleiden & T Schwann develop the cell theory [all animals and plants are made up of cells. Growth and reproduction are due to division of cells]

1840:         Friedrich Gustav Jakob Henle suggests disease caused by microorganisms.

1840:     Martin Barry expresses the belief that the spermatozoon enters the egg

1842:         First use of ether in surgery by Crawford W. Long.

1843:     Richard Owen elaborated the distinction of homology and analogy.

1845:         J. Dzierzon reports drones hatch from unfertilized bee eggs.

1845:                 Robert Remak identifies three embryonic germ layers, ecto-, meso- and endoderm

1850:         Ignaz Semmelweis suggests doctors should wash hands in between patients - he is fired.

1850-1855:     Jean-Baptiste Boussingault, who had proved that the carbon in plants came from atmospheric CO₂, proposes that plant nitrogen comes from the soil. demonstrates that higher plants cannot utilize atmospheric nitrogen, but only nitrates from the soil. He also demonstrates the necessity of nitrogen for plants and animals. His experimental results were not conclusive, however, and conflicting data were soon published by another Parisian chemist, Ville, and popularized by Liebig. The question he resolved was whether the nitrogen that plants need to grow came from the soil or from the air. Joseph Priestley had argued, in the 18^th century, in favor of the air, and his opinion was seconded in the early 19^th century, by Liebig, then the world's most famous chemist.

1852:         Hermann von Helmholtz measures speed of nerve impulse.

1855:         Pasteur develops a vaccine against rabies.

1855:     The Escherichia coli (E. Coli) bacterium is discovered. It later becomes a major research, development and production tool for biotechnology.

1855:      Alfred Russell Wallace publishes On the Law Which Has Regulated the Introduction of New Species

1856:         Edmund Wilson notes X and Y chromosomes in mammals.

1857:         Gregor Mendel begins experiments with peas in his garden.

1857:      Louis Pasteur proves fermentation caused by living organisms.

1858:     Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace publish papers on theory of evolution.

1859:     Charles Darwin, Cambridge, UK, publishes The Origin of Species, vastly strengthening the adaptationist hypothesis.

1860:     T. A. E. Klebs introduces paraffin embedding.

1861:     Louis Pasteur disproves theory of spontaneous generation of microorganisms.

1860:     Rudolph Virchow maintains that all cells arise from other living cells.

1864:     Ernst Haeckel (Häckel) outlines the essential elements of modern zoological classification

1865:     Chloroplasts found in plants by Julius von Sachs.

1865:     Gregory Mendel (1823-1884), Austria,   established the genetic inheritance. The theoretical study of genetics. Experiments in Plant Hybridisation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. His work, in German, was first published in 1865 in the Proceedings of the Brünn Society for Natural History, Brünn, Austria (Hewlett, 1998). It was ignored for a generation.

1866:     E  H Haeckel (Häckel) hypothesizes that the nucleus of a cell transmits its hereditary information

1866:     Louis Pasteur advances theory that germs are cause of disease.

1866:     Langdon Down discovers trisomy 21.

1868:     Friedrich Miescher - discovery of nuclein found in cell nucleus, acidic, rich in PO₄,  lacks S (characteristic of protein). Now know this as nucleic acid

1869:     Francis Galton publishes treatise on eugenics. Hereditary Genius (study of human pedigrees)

1870:         Karl Gegenbaur compares embryos of different organisms.

1870:     W. Flemming discovered mitosis.

1871         Ernst Hoppe-Seyler discovered invertase, an enzyme that cuts sucrose into glucose and fructose.

1872         Ferdinand Cohn publishes volumes on bacteria.

1873         Camillo Golgi introduces staining techniques for cell structure.

1875         Hertwig shows nucleus required for cell division.

1876         Sydney Ringer develops a solution to maintain healthy tissues in vitro.

1876:     J Horner shows that colour-blindness is an inherited disease

1877:         Robert Koch develops bacterial staining for identification of anthrax and other bacteria.

1878         Emerson suggested weeds were plants "whose virtues have not yet been discovered."

1878:    The first centrifuge is developed by Laval.

1879:    Fleming discovers chromatin, the rod-like structures inside the cell nucleus that later came to be called chromosomes.

1879:    In Michigan, Darwin devotee William James Beal makes the first clinically controlled crosses of corn in search of colossal yields.

1880         Pasteur shows that weakened strains of fowl cholera can protect from disease.

1881         Robert Koch grows bacteria on potato slices, on gelatin medium, and on agar medium.

1882:     Walther Flemming studies details of cell division and role of chromosomes.

1882:     Robert Koch, became the first to uncover the cause of a human microbial disease, tuberculosis

1882:      Ilya Metchnikoff observed phagocytes surrounding microorganisms in starfish larvae. .

1882:     August Weismann notes the distinction between somatic and germ cells; chromosomes observed by Walther Flemming in the nuclei of dividing salamander cells. He uses the word mitosis

1884:         Hans Christian Gram finds stains for grain-positive and gram-negative bacteria.

1884:        Pasteur developed a rabies vaccine.

1885         Sigmund Freud begins to develop psychoanalysis.

1886:         Hugo Marie De Vries recognizes importance of mutations in evolution.

1886:                  Hermann Hellriegel observes leguminous plants can utilize atmospheric nitrogen.

1887:         First type of contact lens developed.

1887:                 E. van Beneden discovers each species has fixed number of chromosomes.

1887:                R.J. Petri described glass plates with overlapping lids for growing microbes on agar.

1887:     A Weismann postulates the reduction of chromosome number in germ cells

1888:     W Waldeyer coins the word chromosome

1888:         Eduard Strasburger shows sex cells have half normal number of chromosomes.

1889:         Theodor Boveri shows genetic material located in cell nucleus.

1891:         Heinrich von Waldeyer-Hartz identifies synapses between neurons.

1892:         Dmitri Ivanovsky isolates virus; believes it is a bacterium.

1892:                 First arthropod disease carrier (tick) identified by Theobald Smith.

1892:     A Weismann's book Das Keimplasma (The Germ Plasm) emphasizes meiosis as an exact mechanism of chromosome distribution

1893:         First open heart surgery performed by Daniel Williams.

1894:     William Bateson's Materials for the Study of Variation emphasizes the importance of discontinuous variations; Karl Pearson publishes his first contribution to the mathematical theory of evolution (he develops the Chi-squared test in 1900)

1895:         Winogradski demonstrated nitrogen fixation in the absence of oxygen by Clostridia bacteria.

1896:         Michael Pupin develops diagnostic X-ray.

1896:     EB Wilson publishes The Cell in Development and Heredity

1896:     Wilhelm Kolle, a German bacteriologist, developed cholera and typhoid vaccines.

1897:     English physician Ronald Ross shows mosquitoes transmit malaria.

1897:     Eduard Buchner demonstrated that fermentation can occur with an extract of yeast cells.

1898:         First known virus (TMV) discovered by Martinus Willem Beijerinck.

1899:     The First International Congress of Genetics held in London

1900:     Walter Reed shows mosquitoes spread yellow fever.

1900:     K. Pearson develops the chi-square test.

1900:     K Landsteiner discovers the blood-agglutination phenomenon in humans.

1900:     Paul Ehrlich proposes antigens and antibodies are complementary.

1900:     The Dutch botanist Hugo de Vries and two others discover Mendel's principles; W Bateson publishes its translation to English in the following year.

1901:     Hugo de Vries adopts the term "mutation".

1900:    Drosophila (fruit flies) used in early studies of genes.

1901:      T. H. Montgomery identifies pairing of paternal and maternal chromosomes in meiosis.

1901:      K. Landsteiner identifies three blood groups in humans.

1902:     Ivan Petrovcich Pavlov formulates theory of learning by conditioning.

1902:     WS Sutton and T Boveri (studying sea urchins) independently propose the chromosome theory of heredity [full set of chromosomes are needed for normal development; individual chromosomes carry different hereditary determinants; independent assortment of gene pairs occurs during meiosis]

1902:     C. E. McClung shows that sex is determined at time of fertilization.

1902:     Sir William Bayliss locates first hormone, secretin in lining of intestine.

1902:     A. E. Garrod identifies first inherited human disease.

1902:     The chromosome theory of heredity is proposed by Sutton and Boveri, working independently.

1902:    The term "immunology" first appears.

1905:         Edmund Wilson and Nellie Stevens note relationship of X and Y chromosomes to gender.

1905:     William Bateson gives the name genetics (means 'to generate' in Greek) to this branch of science, and introduces the words allele (allelomorph), heterozygous (impure line) and homozygous (pure line); W Bateson & RC Punnett work out the principles of multigenic interaction (linkage) and heredity

1906:         William Bateson and R. C. Punnett report genetic linkage in sweet peas.

1906:    The term "genetics" is introduced.

1907:         R. G. Harrison develops tissue culture of nerve fibers.

1907:         E. F. Smith shows A. tumefaciens causes crown gall disease.

1907:                 Thomas Morgan begins using fruit flies for chromosome studies.

1908:         G. H. Hardy and W. Weinberg formulate Hardy-Weinberg law.

1908:                Calmette and Guerin developed a vaccine against TB; it was not used until 1921.

1909:         Phoebus Levene shows ribose is the sugar in RNA.

1909:                 H. Nilsson Ehle describes quantitative inheritance in wheat seed color

1909:                 C. Correns and E. Bauer identify non-Mendelian inheritance in chloroplasts.

1909:     Danish botanist Wilhelm Johannsen clarifies difference between phenotype and genotype. He uses the term 'gene' against Mendel's 'factor'.

1909:                  F. A. Janssens suggests nonsister chromatid exchange causes chiasmata.

1909:                  A. E. Garrod publishes Inborn Errors of Metabolism.

1909:     AE Garrod publishes Inborn Errors of Metabolism [biochemical genetics]; W Johannsen uses the words phenotype, genotype and gene for the first time in his studies with beans. CC Little produces the first inbred strain of mice (DBA)

1910:         Thomas Hunt Morgan demonstrates sex linkage in Drosophila.

1910:                 Paul Ehrlich uses first chemotherapy (to cure syphilis).

1911:         Francis Rous isolates first tumor virus (The first cancer-causing virus)

1911:                  Thomas Hunt Morgan locates genes on a chromosome.

1912         A. Wegener proposes the continental drift concept.

1913         W. H. Bragg and W. I. Bragg show atomic structure by X-ray diffraction.

1913:     First ever linkage map created by Columbia undergraduate Alfred Sturtevant (working with T.H. Morgan).

1914:         C. B. Bridges discovers meiotic nondisjunction in Drosophila.

1914:    Bacteria are used to treat sewage for the first time in Manchester, England.

1915:    Phages, or bacterial viruses, are discovered.

1917:         Plough demonstrated the rearrangement of chromosomes known as 'crossing over'.

1918:         H. Spemann and H. Mangold demonstrate embryonic induction.

1918:     Herbert M. Evans found (incorrectly) that human cells contain 48 chromosomes.

1918:     The German army used acetone produced by plants to make bombs.

1918-1926:     Muller, Hermann J. (1962). Studies in Genetics. [His seminal paper on X-rays, from 1927, may be present in this collection.] The gene constitutes the basis of life and evolution by virtue of its property of reproducing its own internal changes

1919:     C. B. bridges discovers chromosomal duplications in Drosophila.

1919:    The word "biotechnology" is first(?) used by a Hungarian agricultural engineer.

1919:     Otto Meyerhof begins work on metabolic path of anaerobic glycolysis.

1920:     The human growth hormone is discovered by Evans and Long.

1921:      F. G. Banting and C. H. Best isolate insulin.

1921:     Chromosome theory of heredity postulated by Thomas Hunt Morgan.

1922:     Elmer McCollum discovers vitamin D.

1923:     Theodor Svedberg develops ultracentrifuge.

1923:     C. B. Bridges discovers chromosomal translocations in Drosophila.

1923:     R. Feulgen and H. Rossenbeck describe DNA staining technique.

1923:     Gyorgy Hevesy uses isotopic tracers to study lead absorption in plants.

1924:     U.S. Immigration Act limits immigration on the grounds of suspected genetic inferiority.

1925:     John Scopes tried for teaching the theory of evolution.

1926:     X-rays found to induce genetic mutations by Hermann J. Muller.

1926:     J. B. Sumner isolates first enzyme in crystalline form (urease).

1926:     A. H. Sturtevant finds first inversion in Drosophila.

1927:     K. M. Bauer reports skin grafts between twins not rejected.

1927:     J. Belling introduces acetocarmine technique for chromosome squashes.

1928:     Frederick Griffith demonstrates transformation of non-encapsulated bacteria.

1928:     Sir Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin, the first antibiotic in the western world (after chinese useage of fungi for treating infection)

1929:     Albert Szent-Gyorgyi isolates vitamin C.

1929: Lewis Stadler showed that ultraviolet radiation can also cause mutations.

1929: R. C. Tryon demonstrates selection for rate of maze leaming in the rat.

1929: Hans Berger develops electroencephalography.

1929: Manfred Sakel first uses electroshock to treat schizophrenia

1930: Ronald Fisher publishes The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection.

1930: Tiselius, Uppsala University, Sweden, A new technique, electrophoresis, is introduced by Tiselius for separating proteins in solution. "The moving-boundary method of studying the electrophoresis of proteins" (published in Nova Acta Regiae Societatis Scientiarum Upsaliensis, Ser. IV, Vol. 7, No. 4)

1930s: Chemical nature of nuclei acid  investigated. It was thought to be a tetranucleotide composed of one unit each of adenylic, guanylic, thymidylic and cytidylic acids

1931: C. Stem, H. B. Creighton and Barbara McClintock - cytological proof of crossing over.

1931: Thirty states in the U.S. had adopted compulsory sterilization laws.

1932: M. Knoll and E. Ruska invent prototype of modern electron microscope.

1932: Germany established eugenics laws, sterilizing 56,244 individuals as "hereditary defectives."

1934: Desmond Bernal showed that proteins can be studied using X-ray crystallography.

1934: Martin Schlesinger purified bacteriophage and found about equal amounts of protein and DNA.

1935: Alexis Carrel develops artificial heart.

1936: Andrei Nikolaevitch Belozersky isolates DNA in pure state.

1937: Albert Blakeslee discovers colchicine, first known chemical mutagen

1937: William Rose identifies essential amino acids needed in human diet for proteins.

1937: Arne Tselius separates proteins using electrophoresis.

1937: Sir Frederick Bawden detects presence of RNA in tobacco mosaic virus.

1937: Insulin used to control diabetes.

1938:    The term "molecular biology" is coined.

1940: Sir Hans Krebs describes Krebs cycle.

1940: Rh factor discovered by Karl Landsteiner and Alexander Wiener.

1940: Howard Florey develops penicillin as a practical antibiotic.

1940: First electron microscope demonstrated by RCA.

1940:    American Oswald Avery demonstrates that DNA is the "transforming factor" and is the material of genes (see publication in 1944)

1941:     Fritz Lipmann recognizes high energy phosphate bonds.

1941: The term "genetic engineering" is first used by Danish microbiologist A. Jost in a lecture on sexual reproduction in yeast at the technical Institute in Lwow, Poland.

1941: George Wells Beadle & Edward Lawrie Tatum. Genetic Control of Biochemical Reactions in Neurospora: First sound scientific evidence for one-gene-one-enzyme (polypeptide) hypothesis. [Tatum receives the Nobel prize in 1958]

1942: Salvador Luria obtains first electron micrograph of a virus (to characterize a bacteriophage - a virus that infects bacteria. )

1943: First dialysis machine developed by Wilhelm Kolff.

1943: Luria and Delbruck performed the first quantitative study of mutation in bacteria.

1944: Daniele Bovet uses antihistamines for allergy control.

1944:    Waksman isolates streptomycin, an effective antibiotic for TB.

1944: Oswald Avery identifies nucleic acids as the active principle in bacterial transformation. Avery, O. T., C. M. MacLeod, and M. McCarty (1944). Studies on the Chemical Nature of Substance Inducing Transformation of Pneumococcal Typoes.  Induction of Transformation by a Desoxyribonucleic Acid Fraction Isolated from Pneumococcus Type III.  Journal of Experimental Medicine 79: 137-158. Also in Peters (1959).  Oswald Avery (1877-1955) was a bacteriologist whose research on pneumococcus bacteria made him one of the founders of immunochemistry and laid the foundation for later discoveries that launched the science of molecular genetics.                 

1945: First fluoridation of water supplies to prevent dental decay.

1945: Melvin Calvin uses carbon-14 isotope to study photosynthesis.

1946: Max Delbruck and Alfred Hershey combine genes of viruses to form new virus.

1946: Genetic material can be transferred laterally between bacterial cells, as shown by Joshua Lederberg and Tatum.

1946:     Discovery that genetic material from different viruses can be combined to form a new type of virus, an example of genetic recombination.

1947: Fritz Lipmann isolates coenzyme A

1947:     Barbara McClintock discovers transposable elements "jumping genes" now known as transposon.

1948: Alfred Kinsey publishes Sexual Behavior in the Human Male.

1949: John Enders grows poliomyelitis virus on tissue.

1949:     Pauling shows that sickle cell anemia is a "molecular disease" resulting from a mutation in the protein molecule hemoglobin.

1950:     Artificial insemination of livestock using frozen semen, was successfully accomplished.

1950:     Erwin Chargaff shows that the four nucleotides are not present in nucleic acids in stable proportions, and that the nucleotide composition differs according to its biological source. Chargaff, Erwin, ed. (1955-60). The Nucleic Acids: Chemistry and Biology. New York, Academic Press.

1951: Pauling and Corey propose the structure for the alpha-helix and beta-sheet (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 27: 205-211, 1951; Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 37: 729-740, 1951).

1951:  J. Andre-Thomas devises heart-lung machine for heart operations.

1952:  Contraceptive pill of phosphorated hesperidin produced.

1952: Alfred Day Hershey and Martha Chase proved, on the basis of their bacteriophage research, that DNA alone carries genetic information.

1953:  Alfred Kinsey publishes Sexual Behavior in the Human Female Francis.

1953:  Lung cancer reported attributable to cigarette smoking.

1953: Hayes discovered plasmids can transfer genetic information from one bacterium to another.

1953: Gey developed the HeLa human cell line from Henrietta Lacks' cervical tumor.

1953: Frederick Sanger, E. O. P. Thompson and Hans Tuppy completed the determination of the amino acid sequence of the A and B chains of insulin. Cambridge, UK.

1953: James Dewey Watson and Francis Harry Compton Crick , Cambridge, UK, propose the double helix model for DNA based on x-ray data obtained by Franklin and Wilkins (Nature, 171: 737-738, 1953).

1954: Max Perutz's group in Cambridge UK develops heavy atom methods to solve the phase problem in protein crystallography.

1954:     First synthesis of a hormone (oxytocin) by Vincent Du Vigneaud.

1954:     J. H. Thio and Albert Levan show humans have 46 chromosomes.

1954:    Cell-culturing techniques are developed.

1955:     Salk vaccine for polio becomes widely used.

1955: Dorothy Hodgkin plots structure of vitamin B-12 using computer.

1955: Frederick Sanger determines structure of insulin.

1955:    An enzyme involved in the synthesis of a nucleic acid is isolated for the first time.

1956: Christian Boehmer Anfinsen and White concluded that the three-dimensional conformation of proteins is specified by their amino acid sequence.

1956:    The fermentation process is perfected in Japan.

1956: Earl Sutherland, Jr. isolates cyclic AMP.

1956: George Palade recognizes ribosome as site of protein synthesis.

1956: Oral polio vaccine developed by Albert Sabin.

1956: Heinz Fraenkel-Conrat took apart and reassembled the tobacco mosaic virus.

1957: Melvin Calvin works out metabolic pathway of photosynthesis.

1957: Seymour Benzer introduced the concept of the cistron: the smallest unit of function of the gene.

1957: Giberellin, growth producing hormone isolated.

1957: Taylor, Woods and Hughes demonstrate semi-conservative DNA replication in plants.

1957: VM Ingram reports the amino acid sequence of HbS;

1957: H Frankel-Conrat, A Gierer and G Schramm independently demonstrate that the genetic information of tobacco mosaic virus is stored in RNA.

1958: Francis Harry Compton Crick, Cambridge, UK, enunciated the central dogma of molecular genetics: information flows from DNA to RNA to protein.

1958: First all female vertebrate species discovered: parthenogenetically reproducing lizards.

1958: Arthur Kornberg isolates DNA 1 polymerase from E. coli.

1958: Meselson and Stahl demonstrate semi-conservative replication of DNA in bacteria.

1959: Severo Ochoa isolates RNA polymerase.

1959: The steps in protein biosynthesis were delineated.

1959: J Lejeune et al show that Down's syndrome is a chromosomal abnormality [trisomy of a small telocentric chromosome]; PA Jacobs & JA Strong identify the chromosomal basis of Klinefelter's syndrome as XXY

1960: Fran?is Jacob and Jacques Lucien Monod proposed the operon hypothesis for the regulation of enzyme synthesis.

1960: Norris and Prescott discover echolocation in dolphins.

1961: Nirenberg and Matthaei publish part of DNA code.

1961: Mary Lyon and Liane Russell propose X inactivation in mammals.

1961: Sidney Brenner, François Jacob, Matthew Meselson, identify messenger RNA,

1962: Rachel Carson publishes Silent Spring.

1963: Dr. Michael De Bakey first uses an artificial heart.

1964: DJL Luck & E Reich isolate mitochondrial DNA from Neurospora

1964:    The International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines starts the Green Revolution with new strains of rice that double the yield of previous strains if given sufficient fertilizer.

1965: DNA discovered in chloroplasts by Hans Ris and Walter Plaut.

1965: Vaccine for measles available.

1965: Margaret Dayhoff's The first Atlas of Protein Sequence and Structure, which contained sequence information on 65 proteins.

1965:     Harris and Watkins successfully fuse mouse and human cells.

1965: First use of mammography to check for breast cancer.

1965: First successful heart transplant by Christiaan Barnard.

1965: Coronary bypass surgery developed by Rene Favaloro.

1965: Synthetic version of DNA produced.

1965: Robert Holley figures out first nucleotide sequence of a tRNA.

1965: Harris and Watkins successfully fused mouse and human cells.

1966: Marshal Nirenberg and H. Gobind Khorana worked out complete genetic code.

1966: Mary Weiss & Howard Green created somatic-cell hybridization with mouse & human cells.

1966: B Weiss & CC Richardson discover DNA ligase; VA McKusick publishes Mendelian Inheritance in Man which is now available online.

1967: W.M. Fitch and E. Margoliash calculated the phylogenetic relationships of twenty organisms, ranging from fungi to mammals, by Comparing their cytochrome C amino acid sequences.

1968: RT Okazaki et al report the discontinuous synthesis of the lagging DNA strand;

1968: M Kimura proposes the Neutral Gene Theory of Molecular Evolution;

1968: HO Smith et al characterize the first specific restriction endonuclease [HindII] [receives the Nobel prize in 1978];

1968: RP Donahue et al assigns the Duffy blood group locus to chromosome 1; S

1968: Wright publishes the first volume of Evolution and the Genetics of Populations

1968:         Werner Arber finds first bacterial endonuclease.

1968:     First single gene isolated by Jonathan Beckwith.

1969:     U. S. government takes steps to ban use of DDT.

1969:    An enzyme is synthesized in vitro for the first time.

1970:     First complete synthesis of a gene.

1970:     Peter Duesberg and Peter Vogt, discovered the first oncogene in a virus.

1970:     The first specific site restriction enzyme was isolated.

1970:     Howard Temin and David Baltimore, first isolated "reverse transcriptase."

1970:      Caspersson & Zech published a method for staining bands in mammalian chromosomes.

1971      Choh Hao Li synthesizes human growth hormone.

1971:     Lynn Margulis proposed an endosymbiont theory for the origins of eucaryotic organelles.

1972:         First CT scan introduced.

1972:                 First MRI developed.

1972: The first recombinant DNA molecule is created in vivo by Paul Berg and his group.

1970s: Fred Sanger, Cambridge UK, develop deoxy DNA sequencing method.

1973:         First calf produced from a frozen embryo.

1973:   Herb Boyer, Annie Chang and Stanley Cohen use plasmid to clone DNA.

1973:                 Bruce Ames, developed a test to identify chemicals that damage DNA.

1973:                 The first human-gene mapping conference took place.

1973: The Brookhaven Protein Data Bank is announced (Acta. Cryst. B, 1973, 29: 1746).

1975: Cesar Milstein and Kohler's Monoclonal antibodies are produced

1975: King and Wilson, suggests the difference between Chimpanzee and humans is small. King, M.C. and A.C. Wilson (1975). Evolution at two levels in Humans and Chimpanzees. Science 188: 107-116. 

1975: Two-dimensional electrophoresis, where separation of proteins on SDS polyacrylamide gel is combined with separation according to isoelectric points, is announced by P. H. O'Farrell (J. Biol. Chem., 250: 4007-4021, 1975).

1975: E. M. Southern published the experimental details for the Southern Blot technique of specific sequences of DNA (J. Mol. Biol., 98: 503-517, 1975)

1976:  Herbert Boyer and Robert Swanson founded Genentech, Inc., a biotechnology company.

1976: The NIH released the first guidelines for recombinant DNA experimentation.

1976:    Yeast genes are expressed in E. coli bacteria.

1977: JC Alwine et al describe the Northern blotting method;

1977:    First expression of human gene in bacteria.

1977: RJ Roberts and PA Sharp separately describe split genes in adenovirus; Introns discovered in eukaryotes by Phillip Sharp.

1977: J Collins & B Holm develop cosmid cloning technique; K Itakura et al chemically synthesize a gene for human somatostatin and express it in E Coli;

1977: W Gilbert induces bacteria to synthesize insulin and interferon;

1977: Sanger et al publish the complete sequence of phage FX174 (5387 nucleotides) [Sanger & Gilbert receive the Nobel prize in 1980, second for Sanger]

1977: Smallpox becomes extinct except for a few research samples.

1977: Walter Gilbert devises methods for sequencing DNA.

1977: The full description of the Brookhaven PDB (http://www.pdb.bnl.gov) is published (Bernstein, F.C.; Koetzle, T.F.; Williams, G.J.B.; Meyer, E.F.; Brice, M.D.; Rodgers, J.R.; Kennard, O.; Shimanouchi, T.; Tasumi, M.J.; J. Mol. Biol., 1977, 112:, 535).

1978:         First test tube baby produced.

1978:    Introducing specific mutations at specific sites in a DNA molecule.

1978: Walter Gilbert coins the terms intron and exons;

1978: T Maniatis et al develop the genomic library screening technique
1978:                Herbert Boyer inserted a synthetic version of the human insulin gene into Escheria coli.

1979: Wang and Rich discover Z-DNA.

1979: John Baxte cloned the gene for human growth hormone.

1980: A gene was transferred from one mouse to another.

1980:     The U.S. Supreme Court, in the landmark case Diamond v. Chakrabarty, approves the principle of patenting genetically engineered life forms, which allows the Exxon oil company to patent an oil-eating microorganism.

1980: Kary Mullis develops PCR.

1980: The first complete genome sequence for virus (pi-x 174) by Sanger group Cambridge, UK, is published. The gene consists of 5,386 base pairs which code nine proteins.

1980: Wüthrich et. al. publish paper detailing the use of multi-dimensional NMR for protein structure determination (Kumar, A.; Ernst, R.R.; Wüthrich, K.; Biochem. Biophys. Res. Comm., 1980, 95:, 1).

1980: JW Gordon et al produce the first transgenic mouse;

1980:     Dr Chakrabarty is awarded the first patent for a genetically engineered (unicellular) organism;

1981:     Chinese first to clone a fish successfully (golden carp)

1981:       AIDS recognized for the first time.

1982:       First foreign DNA injected in a mouse.

1982:       First commercial product of genetic engineering released – insulin.

1982:        First artificial heart transplant by William deVries.

1983:       First artificial chromosome created by Andrew Murray & Jack Szostak.

1983:      Luc Montagnier isolates HIV.

1983:     Gene for Huntington's disease is located to chromosome 4

1984:     First genes cloned from an extinct species by Allen Wilson & Russell Higuchi.

1984:     DNA fingerprinting developed by Alec Jefferys.

1984:     Human baby receives baboon heart transplant.

1984:     First gene to inhibit growth discovered.

1984:     Alec Jeffreys develops genetic fingerprinting

1987:     A field trial is conducted of a recombinant organism, a frost inhibitor, on a strawberry patch.

1987:     Maynard Olson. The use of yeast artifical chromosomes (YAC) is described (David T. Burke, et. al., Science, 236: 806-812).

1987:     McClintock, Barbara (1987). The Discovery and Characterization of Transposable Elements: The Collected Papers of Barbara McClintock. New York: Garland, 1987.  In her 1983 Nobel lecture, McClintock said the genome is "a highly sensitive organ of the cell, that in times of stress could initiate its own restructuring and renovation." See the biography at the Cold Springs Harbor site (external). For a current discussion, see Pennisi 1998. 

1987:      The physical map of e. coli is published (Y. Kohara, et. al., Cell 51: 319-337).

1988:     The Human Genome Initiative is started (Commission on Life Sciences, National Research Council. Mapping and Sequencing the Human Genome, National Academy Press: Washington, D.C.), 1988.

1988:         First patent issued for a vertebrate, a mouse, Harvard University.

1989:         Florida and Virginia allow DNA fingerprinting in court.

1989:      Identification and cloning of human gene for cystic fibrosis.

1989:     Michael Fromm, reported the stable transformation of corn using a high-speed gene gun.

1989:                 The first transgenic dairy cow was used to produce human milk proteins for infant formula.

1989:                 Publication of Michael Crichton's novel Jurassic Park.

1990:     The BLAST program (Altschul, et. al.) is implemented.

1991:      The creation and use of expressed sequence tags (ESTs) is described (J. Craig Venter, et. al., Science, 252: 1651-1656).

1992:     Cyrus Chothia, Cambridge UK, suggests approximate number of protein families to be around 1000. Nature, 1992, June, 357, 543-544 Proteins. One thousand families for the molecular biologist.

1992:         The U.S. Army begins collecting DNA samples from all new recruits.

1993:         The FDA declares that genetically engineered foods do not require special regulation.

1993:       Researchers clone human embryos in a Petri dish for several days.

1993:     Affymetrix begins independent operations in Santa Clara, California

1994:     The first genetically engineered food product, the Flavr Savr tomato, gained FDA approval.

1994:                 The first breast cancer gene is discovered.

1994:     The first CASP (protein structure prediction meeting) held at Asilomar, California. Hidden Markov Model, Interative search method, Threading method were successful in predicting protein structures.

1995:         The first full gene sequence is completed for the bacterium H. influenzae.

1995:     The first free-living organism Haemophilus influenzea genome (1.8 Mb) is sequenced.

1995:     The smallest free-living organism Mycoplasma genitalium genome is sequenced.

1995:     The first open-community BioPerl project (with other sister projects BioJava, BioLinux, etc) in bioinformatics initiated by Jong Park and Steve Brenner, Cambridge, MRC Centre, UK (history_of_bioperl.html)

1996:     A diagnostic biosensor test allows instantaneous detection of a toxic strain of E. coli.

1996:     The genome for Saccharomyces cerevisiae (baker's yeast, 12.1 Mb) is sequenced.

1996-1997:     The first cloning of a mammal (Dolly the sheep) is performed by Ian Wilmut and colleagues, from the Roslin institute in Scotland.

1996:     Affymetrix produces the first commercial DNA chips.

1997:     The genome for E. coli (4.7 Mbp) is published.

1997:     The complete genomes of E. coli, H.  pylori and Borrelia burgdorferi, are sequenced.

1998:     The genomes for Caenorhabditis elegans (an animal) and baker's yeast are published.

1998:     Inpharmatica, a new Genomics and Bioinformatics company, is established by University College London, the Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research, five leading scientists from major British academic centers and Unibio Limited.

1998:     Two research teams succeed in growing embryonic stem cells.

1998:     A rough draft of the human genome map is produced, showing more than 30,000 genes.

1999:     Protein Structural Interactome Map: PSIMAP including the first full genome interaction network using PDB and yeast two hybrid system was created by Liisa Holm group members, EBI, Cambridge, UK ( Jong Park, Liisa Holm, Michale Lappe, Sarah Teichmann)

2000:      The genome for Pseudomonas aeruginosa (6.3 Mbp) is published.

2000:     The A. thaliana genome (100 Mb) is secquenced.

2000:     The D. melanogaster genome (180Mb) is secquenced.

2001:     The human genome (3 Giga base pairs) is published.

2002:

2003:

2004:

 

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Online References:

The hisotyr of internet: http://www.davesite.com/webstation/net-history.shtml

Allen B. Richon, E-mail: arichon@netsci.org http://www.netsci.org/Science/Bioinform/feature06.html

Internet hisotyr: http://members.magnet.at/dmayr/history.htm

Biological hisotory to 1953: http://www.mun.ca/biology/scarr/2250_History.htm

Long history of biology: http://www.crevola.com/laurent/sitelolo/histoire/historybc.html

About Darwinism: http://www.aboutdarwin.com/literature/Pre_Dar.html

Theoretical Biology: http://www.zbi.ee/~uexkull/theor.htm

History of Agriculture: http://www.crystalinks.com/agriculturehistory.html

Early history of life: http://nitro.biosci.arizona.edu/courses/EEB105/lectures/Origins_of_Life/origins.html

===============================================================

Off-line References

J. Cairns, G. Stent, & J. Watson (1966). Phage and the Origins of Molecular Biology. Freeman. [Biographical essays on the early days by the founders of molecular genetics]

F. H. C. Crick (1988). What Mad Pursuit? Basic Books. [Crick's version of the 'double helix' history, and lots more]

L. Gonick & M. Wheelis (1991). The Cartoon Guide to Genetics, 2nd ed. Harper Collins. [Great illustrations: a good primer of basic Mendelian and molecular genetics]

H. F. Judson (1979). The Eighth Day of Creation. Simon & Schuster. [A general history of molecular biology]

A. Sayre (1975). Rosalind Franklin and DNA. Norton. [A re-appraisal of the role of Franklin, with commentary on the role of women in science]

G. Stent  (1971). Molecular Genetics: an introductory narrative.  Freeman. [A classic, now factually dated textbook, still highly readable]

J. D. Watson (1968). The Double Helix. Atheneum. [An entertaining, irreverent, sexist, account of the discovery of the structure of DNA. See the accounts of Crick and Sayre for an antidote]

History of Genetics: From Prehistoric Times to the Rediscovery of Mendel's Laws by Hans Stubbe (MIT press, out of print)

A History of Genetics by Alfred Sturtevant

The Eighth Day of Creation by Horace Judson (focus on molecular biology)

The Century of the Gene by Evelyn Fox Keller

Cracking the Genome : Inside the Race to Unlock Human DNA by Kevin Davies

 

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Jong@bio.cc

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