A calendar of events in Genetics

The Gene Calendar	Genetics has come from nothing to scaring the pants off scriptwriters for X-files in just 60 years. Scientists in Europe and Japan are involved in the Human Genome Project, working out newer strategies of sequencing every day. Sequencing by hybridization is an example. This calendar is a small attempt to catalog all those who contributed to genetics in some way

1941	Beadle and Tatum develop the one-gene-one-enzyme theory
1944	Avery and co-workers demonstrate that DNA is the genetic material
1953	Watson and Crick come out with the double-helix model of DNA structure
1956	In vitro synthesis of RNA by Ochoa, In vitro synthesis of DNA by Kornberg
1958	Crick predicts the existance of tRNA
1960	Marmur and Doty: Discovery of DNA denaturation and renaturation
1961	DNA/RNA hybrids produced by Hall and Speigelmann. Jacob and Monod predict the existance of mRNA The triplet code nature of the genetic material proved by Crick and Brenner
1962	Arber postulates the existance of restriction endonucleases
1965	The first automated polypeptide synthesizer: Merrifield and Stewart
1967	Nirenberg, Holley and Khorana decipher the gnentic code Gellert purifies DNA ligase
1968	Smith, Wilcox and Kelly purify the first restriction endonuclease
1969	in situ hybridization of mammalian chromosomes: Gall and Pardue
1970	Temin and Baltimore discover reverse transcriptase Campersson demonstrates chromosome banding patterns
1971	The restriction map of the SV40 virus published by Dana and Nathans
1972-3	The first recombinant DNA molecules are produced in the labaratories of Berg, Cohen and Boyer
1974	Murray and Murray create the first phage vector
1975	Grunstien and Hogness develop the colony hybridization method for the isolation of cloned DNAs containing specific sequences The firstmonoclonal antibodies produced: Kohler and Milstien
1976	Application of a DNA probe in the prenatal diagnosis of alpha-thalassemia; Kan globus and Dozy Tonegawa proves that antibody diversity is a dirct consequense of recombination of antibody determining sequences The first mammalian protien coding gene cloned into a lambda vector by Leder and co-workers.
1977	Rapid DNA sequenceing methodologies are announced by Sanger and by Maxam and Gilbert The artificially synthesized protein in the lab-human somatostatin proves useful too! Various labaratories are surprised to discover introns Collins and Holm develop Cosmids
1978	Maniatis and co-workers develop the world's first gene libraries RFLPs first used in the prenatal diagnosis of sickle cell disease:Kan and Dozy
1979	Goeddel announces the production of recombinant growth hormone in bacteria
1980	Ruddle and co-workers develop transgenic mice
1981	Parker, Varmus and Bishop distinguish between viral oncogenes and cellular oncogenes Sanger and others sequence the complete mitochondrial genome
1982	The isolation and charecterization of the first human oncogene
1985	DNA fingerprinting by Jeffries.
1985-6	Kary Milus and others at the Cetus Corporation develop the Polymerase Chain reaction The DMD gene is cloned at the labaratories of Kunkel and Worton.
1987	The YAC vector developed by Olsen and co-workers Knudson and Cavanee identify the tumour supressor functions of the retinoblastoma gene
1988	Francis, Tui and others develop the technique of gene walking The method of interaction trapping is reported by Fields and Song
1990	Barry invents the ligase chain reaction

Adopted from the book Genes in Medicine, Istvan Rasko and
C. Stephen Downes, Chapman and Hall