The History of Genetic Thought: 3D Gallery

Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin was a British naturalist and biologist who is most well known for his theory of evolution through natural selection. He was born in England in 1809. Darwin came from a family of scientists and he loved to explore nature as a child. In 1831, Charles Darwin embarked on a five-year voyage around the world aboard the HMS Beagle. He traveled to many places including South America and the Galapagos Islands. He studied the principles of botany, geology, and zoology closely through hands-on research and experimentation in these places. This led him to develop his landmark theory of evolution through natural selection in which the organisms that successfully adapted or evolved to meet their needs in a changing environment thrived and reproduced, while those species that failed to evolve and reproduce die off. In 1859, in conjunction with Alfred Russel Wallace, Charles Darwin published his groundbreaking book, On the Origin of Species. He died in 1882 of heart failure.

Alfred Russel Wallace

Alfred Russel Wallace (1823 to 1913) was a British naturalist who is also well known for his contributions to the theory of evolution through natural selection. He spent eight years collecting specimens of living organisms in Southeast Asia. He researched the geographic distribution of animals. On his voyage back to England from South America, his ship caught fire and he lost all his specimens, drawings, and field notes, but he was lucky to escape with his life because he spent 10 days adrift. He went back to Southeast Asia in 1854 where he came down with a horrible fever. He suffered from hallucinations, but when he recovered he had a realization and theorized that living organisms evolve and change over time. In 1858 he sent Charles Darwin a letter explaining his findings. Darwin, who had had the same realization 16 years earlier decided to include Wallace’s findings in his book, On the Origin of Species.

Henry Walter Bates

Henry Walter Bates was a British naturalist and entomologist who was especially fond of beetles. He was born in 1825. He contributed to the theory of evolution through natural selection by helping prove its legitimacy by demonstrating it through animal mimicry. He explored the Amazon Basin for over 11 years and collected 14,712 species of animals, mostly insects, 8,000 of which were previously unknown. After Bates returned to England in 1859, he began curating his huge collection of specimens and writing one of his most famous papers, “Contributions to an Insect Fauna of the Amazon Valley.” which was presented in 1861 and published in 1862. Bates was appointed assistant secretary of the Royal Geographic Society (London) in 1864 and he held the position until his death in 1892. Bates also wrote The Naturalist on the River Amazons, 2 vol. in 1863, and numerous other papers on entomology.

Gregor Mendel

(PLEASE READ GREGOR MENDEL'S DESCRIPTION ON THE GOOGLE DOC AS IT DIDN'T FIT IN THE BOX PROVIDED.)

Gregor Mendel was an Austrian botanist, teacher, and monk who is considered to be the father of modern genetics and is known for discovering the basic principles of heredity through experiments on over 29,000 pea plants. He was born in 1822 in a rural area of Austria and he passed away in 1884. In 1854, Gregor Mendel started to research the transmission of hereditary traits in plants. He studied seven different traits: seed wrinkles, seed color; seed-coat color, which leads to flower color, pod shape, pod color, flower location, and plant height. When he studied the transmission of these traits to different generations he was surprised to find that plants with only one certain trait could be bred with one another and some plants in the next generation would have completely different traits. For example, When Mendel bred plants with both purple flowers and white flowers together the next generation had all purple flowers. When he bred these purple-flowered plants with one another he was shocked to find that some white-flowered plants had appeared again. Mendel realized that the plants with purple flowers still held the instructions (genes) for making white flowers somewhere inside them. He ended up calling the purple trait dominant and the white trait recessive. After analyzing his results he settled on two theories: the Law of Segregation, which established that there are dominant and recessive traits transmitted randomly from parents to their offspring and the Law of Independent Assortment, which established that traits were passed on independently of other traits from parent to offspring. Even though Mendel’s experiments had been conducted with pea plants, he proposed that all living things had such traits. In 1865 he gave two lectures at The Natural Science Society in the Brno (which is located in the modern-day Czech Republic, who agreed to publish his studies in their journal the following year, under the title Experiments on Plant Hybrids. His groundbreaking research is now the foundation of modern genetics and the study of heredity.

Freidrich Miescher

Friedrich Miescher (1844-1895) was a Swiss scientist who studied cell metabolism and is widely credited with discovering DNA (the carrier of genetic information and the abbreviation for deoxyribonucleic acid). In 1869, while performing research at the University of Tubingen, Miescher discovered a substance containing both phosphorus and nitrogen in the nuclei of white blood cells found in pus. The substance, which was first named nuclein because it seemed to come from cell nuclei, became known as nucleic acid in 1874 when Miescher separated it into protein and acid components. It is now known as deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Miesher went on to found Switzerland’s first physiological institute in 1885.

Francis Crick

Francis Crick was a British biologist and physiologist who is credited with discovering, along with James Watson, Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin, the double helix structure of DNA. He was born in 1916 and passed away in 2004. Crick and Watson used X-ray diffraction images of DNA (many taken by Rosalind Franklin) to help them create a molecular model that represented the physical and chemical properties of DNA in 1953. It consisted of two vertical spiral strands and horizontal strands going in between the vertical stands resembling a twisted ladder (now referred to as the double helix). They also hypothesized that if the two sides split from one another, each side would become the basis for a pattern for the formation of new, identical strands of DNA. This theory along with other research provided an explanation of the process behind the replication of genes and, eventually, chromosomes. In 1953 Crick and Watson published their findings in the scientific journal, Nature. Crick, Watson, and Wilkins went on to receive a Nobel Prize for their work in 1962. Franklin had died of ovarian cancer four years earlier and, sadly did not receive her due credit in the endeavor.

Nettie Stevens

Nettie Stevens (1861-1912) was an American biologist who is credited with discovering that sex is determined by a specific configuration of chromosomes. She performed experiments on yellow meal worms and observed that male meal worms produced two different types of sperm, one with a large chromosome and one with a small chromosome. She found that when the sperm with the large chromosome fertilized the eggs, female offspring were produced, and when the sperm with the small chromosome fertilized the eggs, male offspring were produced. In 1905, Stevens published a paper titled, Studies in Spermatogenesis in which she detailed her discovery that a particular combination of the chromosomes (known as X and Y) was responsible for determining the sex of an individual.

Barbara McClintock

Barbara McClintock (1902-1992) was a Nobel Prize-winning American scientist and cytogeneticist who is credited with the discovery of Jumping Genes or transposons, DNA sequences that move from one location on the genome to another. In the 1940s and 50s, Barbara McClintock observed and experimented with variations in the coloration of kernels of corn. McClintock traced pigmentation changes in corn by using a microscope to examine the plant’s large chromosomes, she was able to isolate two genes that she called “controlling elements.” These genes controlled the genes that determined the color of pigmentation. McClintock found that the controlling elements were able to move along the chromosome to a different spot and that these changes influenced the behavior of neighboring genes. She came to the conclusion that that genetic information is not stationary and that these transposons were responsible for new mutations in pigmentation and other traits. Barbara McClintock’s findings were ignored for much of her career but eventually when other scientists recognized the importance of her findings she received many awards including the 1983 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. She made history as the first woman to be the sole winner of this award.

Jennifer Doudna

Jennifer Doudna is an American biochemist who was born on February 19, 1964, in Washington, D.C. She is best known for her discovery, in conjunction with French microbiologist Emmanuelle Charpentier, of a molecular tool known as Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats or CRISPR-Cas9 in 2012 enabling researchers to make specific changes to DNA sequences in order to cure disease among other things. Using the CRISPR-Cas9 system, scientists are able to alter DNA to correct genetic defects in animals, plants, and humans. CRISPR/Cas9 works by using a guide RNA (the CRISPR part) to guide the Cas9 enzyme to a target section of DNA. Together, they work as a pair of genetic-engineering scissors that disables or repairs a gene or inserts something new where the Cas9 has made some cuts. Doudna continues to speak about the ethics of CRISPR and founded Caribou, a company focused on making Crispr technology mainstream.

Emmanuelle Charpentier

Emmanuelle Charpentier is a French microbiologist who was born on December 11, 1968. She is most well known for co-discovering Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats or CRISPR with Jennifer Doudna and recognizing how it could be used for gene editing. CRISPR/Cas9 works by using a guide RNA (the CRISPR part) to guide the Cas9 enzyme to a target section of DNA. Together, they work as a pair of genetic-engineering scissors that edits genes by disabling, repairing, or inserting something new where the Cas9 has made cuts. Scientists can use CRISPR to edit the genes of plants, animals, and humans in order to cure disease and provide other benefits. Emanuelle Charpentier has cofounded the drug-discovery company CRISPR Therapeutics and the intellectual property firm ERS Genomics. As of late, CRISPR Therapeutics has raised over $500 million and is valued at over $2.5 billion. It has offices in the US, Switzerland and the UK. Charpentier is also establishing her own research unit at the prestigious Max Planck Society in Berlin, Germany.

Username:
Password:
Submit Cancel
Not a member? JOIN NOW!

The History of Genetic Thought