History of DNA

1865 : Gregor Mendel tells about the importance of “Factor” inheritance in pea plant.

1944 : Avery, Macleod and McCarty conduct experiment that shows DNA, not protein, causes bacterial transformation.

1953 : article by Watson and Crick in nature describes the structure of DNA for which they later win the Nobel prize.

1956 : Human chromosome number established as 46.

1958 : Meselson and Stahl demonstrate that DNA copies itself via a semi-conservative process.

1961 : Marshall and Johann read forst DNA word, 3 letters that code for a single amino acid in a protein.

1972 : Paul Berg combines DNA of 2 different organisms to create the first recombinant DNA molecules.

1980 : Walter Gilbert and Fred Sanger got the Nobel prize for their seminal work on DNA sequencing. Sequencing the first DNA genome that of the bacterium infecting virus phi X174 .

1981 : Establishment of Human mitochondrial genome sequences and discovery of first Human cancer causing oncogenes.

1990 : Human genome project planning starts and Gene therapy is successfully used on a patient for first time.

1994 : first genetically engineered food – Calgene’s Flavr Savr tomato.

1999 : Fruit fly genome published.

2008 : Launch of 1000 genome project.

2014 : cost of sequencing a human genome falls to below $1,000.