History Timeline of Genetics

Gregor Mendel formulates laws of inheritance,1865,CE,Mendel conducts pea plant hybridization experiments identifying patterns of dominant and recessive trait segregation foundational to classical genetics,genetics

Friedrich Miescher discovers nuclein,1869,CE,Miescher isolates a phosphorus rich substance from pus cells later named DNA revealing the chemical basis for heredity,molecular genetics

Hugo de Vries Carl Correns and Erich von Tschermak rediscover Mendel’s work,1900,CE,Independent rediscovery of Mendel’s papers by Dutch and German botanists brings heredity principles to scientific attention reviving genetics research,genetics

Walter Sutton proposes chromosome theory of inheritance,1902,CE,Sutton observes meiotic behavior of chromosomes in grasshopper testes correlating chromosomal segregation with Mendelian inheritance establishing chromosomal basis of genetics,genetics

William Bateson coins term genetics,1905,CE,Bateson adopts Mendel’s principles to study heredity and introduces genetics as the branch of biology concerned with variation inheritance and traits,genetics

Thomas Hunt Morgan demonstrates sex linkage,1910,CE,Morgan’s experiments with Drosophila melanogaster reveal that genes reside on chromosomes and that white eye mutation is X linked confirming chromosome theory,genetics

Thomas Hunt Morgan’s fly lab maps first genetic linkage,1913,CE,Morgan and his students construct linkage maps of Drosophila establishing concept of recombination frequency as measure of gene distance on chromosomes,genetics

Oswald Avery Colin MacLeod and Maclyn McCarty demonstrate DNA is genetic material,1944,CE,Avery MacLeod and McCarty show that purified DNA from Streptococcus pneumoniae can transform nonvirulent bacteria into virulent form proving DNA carries hereditary information,molecular genetics

Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase confirm DNA heredity role,1952,CE,Hershey and Chase use bacteriophage T2 experiments labeling protein and DNA demonstrating only DNA enters bacterial cells and directs phage replication consolidating role of DNA,molecular genetics

James Watson and Francis Crick propose double helix structure of DNA,1953,CE,Watson and Crick use X ray diffraction data to model DNA as antiparallel strands with complementary base pairing explaining mechanism for replication and inheritance,molecular biology

Marshall Nirenberg and J Heinrich Matthaei decipher first codon,1961,CE,Nirenberg and Matthaei synthesize polyuracil RNA sequences in vitro showing that UUU codes for phenylalanine laying groundwork for cracking the genetic code,molecular biology

François Jacob and Jacques Monod propose operon model for gene regulation,1961,CE,Jacob and Monod describe lac operon regulatory mechanism in E coli identifying roles of promoter operator and repressor illustrating transcriptional control,gene regulation

Frederick Sanger develops dideoxy DNA sequencing,1977,CE,Sanger’s chain termination method enables rapid determination of DNA nucleotide sequences facilitating gene mapping genome projects and biotechnology,genomics

Kary Mullis invents polymerase chain reaction PCR,1983,CE,Mullis develops PCR using thermostable Taq polymerase allowing exponential amplification of specific DNA segments revolutionizing molecular genetics diagnostics and forensics,molecular technique

Launch of Human Genome Project,1990,CE,International consortium begins large scale collaboration to sequence and map entire human genome aiming to identify approximately 20000–25000 human genes and create reference sequence,genomics

Completion of draft human genome sequence,2001,CE,International Human Genome Project publishes draft sequence covering over 90 percent of human genome accelerating research into genetic bases of diseases and personalized medicine,genomics

Publication of finished human genome sequence,2003,CE,Consortium releases near complete reference human genome sequence identifying protein coding genes and structural variants enabling extensive functional genomics studies,genomics

Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna develop CRISPR Cas9 gene editing,2012,CE,Charpentier and Doudna engineer RNA guided Cas9 nuclease for precise genome modifications in living cells transforming genetic engineering and therapeutic research,genetic engineering