DNA: the Timeline and Evidence of Discovery
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Sequencing As a Way of Work
Edinburgh Research Explorer A new insight into Sanger’s development of sequencing Citation for published version: Garcia-Sancho, M 2010, 'A new insight into Sanger’s development of sequencing: From proteins to DNA, 1943-77', Journal of the History of Biology, vol. 43, no. 2, pp. 265-323. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10739-009- 9184-1 Digital Object Identifier (DOI): 10.1007/s10739-009-9184-1 Link: Link to publication record in Edinburgh Research Explorer Document Version: Peer reviewed version Published In: Journal of the History of Biology Publisher Rights Statement: © Garcia-Sancho, M. (2010). A new insight into Sanger’s development of sequencing: From proteins to DNA, 1943-77. Journal of the History of Biology, 43(2), 265-323. 10.1007/s10739-009-9184-1 General rights Copyright for the publications made accessible via the Edinburgh Research Explorer is retained by the author(s) and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. Take down policy The University of Edinburgh has made every reasonable effort to ensure that Edinburgh Research Explorer content complies with UK legislation. If you believe that the public display of this file breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 28. Sep. 2021 THIS IS AN ADVANCED DRAFT OF A PUBLISHED PAPER. REFERENCES AND QUOTATIONS SHOULD ALWAYS BE MADE TO THE PUBLISHED VERION, WHICH CAN BE FOUND AT: García-Sancho M. -
Discovery of DNA Structure and Function: Watson and Crick By: Leslie A
01/08/2018 Discovery of DNA Double Helix: Watson and Crick | Learn Science at Scitable NUCLEIC ACID STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION | Lead Editor: Bob Moss Discovery of DNA Structure and Function: Watson and Crick By: Leslie A. Pray, Ph.D. © 2008 Nature Education Citation: Pray, L. (2008) Discovery of DNA structure and function: Watson and Crick. Nature Education 1(1):100 The landmark ideas of Watson and Crick relied heavily on the work of other scientists. What did the duo actually discover? Aa Aa Aa Many people believe that American biologist James Watson and English physicist Francis Crick discovered DNA in the 1950s. In reality, this is not the case. Rather, DNA was first identified in the late 1860s by Swiss chemist Friedrich Miescher. Then, in the decades following Miescher's discovery, other scientists--notably, Phoebus Levene and Erwin Chargaff--carried out a series of research efforts that revealed additional details about the DNA molecule, including its primary chemical components and the ways in which they joined with one another. Without the scientific foundation provided by these pioneers, Watson and Crick may never have reached their groundbreaking conclusion of 1953: that the DNA molecule exists in the form of a three-dimensional double helix. The First Piece of the Puzzle: Miescher Discovers DNA Although few people realize it, 1869 was a landmark year in genetic research, because it was the year in which Swiss physiological chemist Friedrich Miescher first identified what he called "nuclein" inside the nuclei of human white blood cells. (The term "nuclein" was later changed to "nucleic acid" and eventually to "deoxyribonucleic acid," or "DNA.") Miescher's plan was to isolate and characterize not the nuclein (which nobody at that time realized existed) but instead the protein components of leukocytes (white blood cells). -
Biochemistrystanford00kornrich.Pdf
University of California Berkeley Regional Oral History Office University of California The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California Program in the History of the Biosciences and Biotechnology Arthur Kornberg, M.D. BIOCHEMISTRY AT STANFORD, BIOTECHNOLOGY AT DNAX With an Introduction by Joshua Lederberg Interviews Conducted by Sally Smith Hughes, Ph.D. in 1997 Copyright 1998 by The Regents of the University of California Since 1954 the Regional Oral History Office has been interviewing leading participants in or well-placed witnesses to major events in the development of Northern California, the West, and the Nation. Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through tape-recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well- informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. The tape recording is transcribed, lightly edited for continuity and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewee. The corrected manuscript is indexed, bound with photographs and illustrative materials, and placed in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, and in other research collections for scholarly use. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account, offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is reflective, partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ************************************ All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement between The Regents of the University of California and Arthur Kornberg, M.D., dated June 18, 1997. The manuscript is thereby made available for research purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. -
Nature Medicine Essay
COMMENTARY LASKER BASIC MEDICAL RESEARCH AWARD Of maize and men, or peas and people: case histories to justify plants and other model systems David Baulcombe One of the byproducts of molecular biology cork is altogether filled with air, and that air is has been support for the ‘model system’ con- perfectly enclosed in little boxes or cells distinct cept. All living organisms are based on the same from one another.”)2 (Fig. 1). Two hundred fifty genetic code, they have similar subcellular years later, Beijerinck discovered a contagium structures and they use homologous metabolic vivum fluidum in extracts of diseased tobacco pathways. So, mechanisms can be investigated plants that he later referred to as a virus3. using organisms other than those in which In contemporary science, a green alga— the knowledge will be exploited for practical Chlamydomonas reinhardtii—is a useful model benefit. Model systems are particularly use- in the analysis of kidney disease4. However, ful in the early discovery phase of a scientific in this article, I refer to the contribution of endeavor, and recent progress in biomedical plant biology to a family of mechanisms that I science has fully vindicated their use. Jacques refer to as RNA silencing. This topic has been Monod, for example, famously justified his reviewed comprehensively elsewhere5,6, so here work on a bacterial model system by stating I focus on personal experience and my view of that “what is true for Escherichia coli is also future potential from this work. true for elephants.” My fellow laureates, Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun, can defend the use The early history of RNA silencing in of the worm Caenorhabditis elegans as a good plants model system and so I will focus on plants. -
Introduction and Historical Perspective
Chapter 1 Introduction and Historical Perspective “ Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution. ” modified by the developmental history of the organism, Theodosius Dobzhansky its physiology – from cellular to systems levels – and by the social and physical environment. Finally, behaviors are shaped through evolutionary forces of natural selection OVERVIEW that optimize survival and reproduction ( Figure 1.1 ). Truly, the study of behavior provides us with a window through Behavioral genetics aims to understand the genetic which we can view much of biology. mechanisms that enable the nervous system to direct Understanding behaviors requires a multidisciplinary appropriate interactions between organisms and their perspective, with regulation of gene expression at its core. social and physical environments. Early scientific The emerging field of behavioral genetics is still taking explorations of animal behavior defined the fields shape and its boundaries are still being defined. Behavioral of experimental psychology and classical ethology. genetics has evolved through the merger of experimental Behavioral genetics has emerged as an interdisciplin- psychology and classical ethology with evolutionary biol- ary science at the interface of experimental psychology, ogy and genetics, and also incorporates aspects of neuro- classical ethology, genetics, and neuroscience. This science ( Figure 1.2 ). To gain a perspective on the current chapter provides a brief overview of the emergence of definition of this field, it is helpful -
Quiet Debut'' of the Double Helix: a Bibliometric and Methodological
Journal of the History of Biology Ó Springer 2009 DOI 10.1007/s10739-009-9183-2 Revisiting the ‘‘Quiet Debut’’ of the Double Helix: A Bibliometric and Methodological note on the ‘‘Impact’’ of Scientific Publications YVES GINGRAS De´partement d’histoire Universite´ du Que´bec a` Montre´al C.P. 8888, Suc. Centre-Ville Montreal, QC H3C-3P8 Canada E-mail: [email protected] Abstract. The object of this paper is two-fold: first, to show that contrary to what seem to have become a widely accepted view among historians of biology, the famous 1953 first Nature paper of Watson and Crick on the structure of DNA was widely cited – as compared to the average paper of the time – on a continuous basis from the very year of its publication and over the period 1953–1970 and that the citations came from a wide array of scientific journals. A systematic analysis of the bibliometric data thus shows that Watson’s and Crick’s paper did in fact have immediate and long term impact if we define ‘‘impact’’ in terms of comparative citations with other papers of the time. In this precise sense it did not fall into ‘‘relative oblivion’’ in the scientific community. The second aim of this paper is to show, using the case of the reception of the Watson–Crick and Jacob–Monod papers as concrete examples, how large scale bibliometric data can be used in a sophisticated manner to provide information about the dynamic of the scientific field as a whole instead of limiting the analysis to a few major actors and generalizing the result to the whole community without further ado. -
Science in Action
SCIENCE IN ACTION How to follow scientists and engineers through society Bruno Latour Harvard UnlvetSHy Press Cambridge, Massachusetts 1987 INTRODUCTION Opening Pandora's Black Box Scene 1: On a cold and sunny morning in October 1985, John Whittaker entered his office in the molecular biology building of the Institut Pasteur in Paris and switched on his Eclipse MV/8000 computer. A few seconds after loading the special programs he had written, a three-dimensional picture of the DNA double helix flashed onto the screen. John, a visiting computer scientist, had been invited by the Institute to write programs that could produce three-dimensional images of the coils of DNA and relate them to the thousands of new nucleic acid sequences pouring out every year into the journals and data banks. 'Nice picture, eh?' said his boss, Pierre, who was just entering the office. 'Yes, good machine too,' answered John. Scene 2: In 1951 in the Cavendish laboratory at Cambridge, England, the X-ray pictures of crystallised deoxyribonucleic acid were not 'nice pictures' on a computer screen. The two young researchers, Jim Watson and Francis Crick1, had a hard time obtaining them from Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin in London. It was impossible yet to decide if the form of the acid was a triple or a double helix, if the phosphate bonds were at the inside or at the outside of the molecule, or indeed if it was an helix at all. It did not matter much to their boss, Sir Francis Bragg, since the two were not supposed to be working on DNA anyway, but it mattered a lot to them, especially since Linus Pauling, the famous chemist, was said to be about to uncover the structure of DNA in a few months. -
A Short History of DNA Technology 1865 - Gregor Mendel the Father of Genetics
A Short History of DNA Technology 1865 - Gregor Mendel The Father of Genetics The Augustinian monastery in old Brno, Moravia 1865 - Gregor Mendel • Law of Segregation • Law of Independent Assortment • Law of Dominance 1865 1915 - T.H. Morgan Genetics of Drosophila • Short generation time • Easy to maintain • Only 4 pairs of chromosomes 1865 1915 - T.H. Morgan •Genes located on chromosomes •Sex-linked inheritance wild type mutant •Gene linkage 0 •Recombination long aristae short aristae •Genetic mapping gray black body 48.5 body (cross-over maps) 57.5 red eyes cinnabar eyes 67.0 normal wings vestigial wings 104.5 red eyes brown eyes 1865 1928 - Frederick Griffith “Rough” colonies “Smooth” colonies Transformation of Streptococcus pneumoniae Living Living Heat killed Heat killed S cells mixed S cells R cells S cells with living R cells capsule Living S cells in blood Bacterial sample from dead mouse Strain Injection Results 1865 Beadle & Tatum - 1941 One Gene - One Enzyme Hypothesis Neurospora crassa Ascus Ascospores placed X-rays Fruiting on complete body medium All grow Minimal + amino acids No growth Minimal Minimal + vitamins in mutants Fragments placed on minimal medium Minimal plus: Mutant deficient in enzyme that synthesizes arginine Cys Glu Arg Lys His 1865 Beadle & Tatum - 1941 Gene A Gene B Gene C Minimal Medium + Citruline + Arginine + Ornithine Wild type PrecursorEnz A OrnithineEnz B CitrulineEnz C Arginine Metabolic block Class I Precursor OrnithineEnz B CitrulineEnz C Arginine Mutants Class II Mutants PrecursorEnz A Ornithine -
1 History for Canonical and Non-Canonical Structures of Nucleic Acids
1 1 History for Canonical and Non-canonical Structures of Nucleic Acids The main points of the learning: Understand canonical and non-canonical structures of nucleic acids and think of historical scientists in the research field of nucleic acids. 1.1 Introduction This book is to interpret the non-canonical structures and their stabilities of nucleic acids from the viewpoint of the chemistry and study their biological significances. There is more than 60 years’ history after the discovery of the double helix DNA structure by James Dewey Watson and Francis Harry Compton Crick in 1953, and chemical biology of nucleic acids is facing a new aspect today. Through this book, I expect that readers understand how the uncommon structure of nucleic acids became one of the common structures that fascinate us now. In this chapter, I introduce the history of nucleic acid structures and the perspective of research for non-canonical nucleic acid structures (see also Chapter 15). 1.2 History of Duplex The opening of the history of genetics was mainly done by three researchers. Charles Robert Darwin, who was a scientist of natural science, pioneered genetics. The proposition of genetic concept is indicated in his book On the Origin of Species published in 1859. He indicated the theory of biological evolution, which is the basic scientific hypothesis of natural diversity. In other words, he proposed biological evolution, which changed among individuals by adapting to the environment and be passed on to the next generation. However, that was still a primitive idea for the genetic concept. After that, Gregor Johann Mendel, who was a priest in Brno, Czech Republic, confirmed the mechanism of gene evolution by using “factor” inherited from parent to children using pea plant in 1865. -
Physics Today - February 2003
Physics Today - February 2003 Rosalind Franklin and the Double Helix Although she made essential contributions toward elucidating the structure of DNA, Rosalind Franklin is known to many only as seen through the distorting lens of James Watson's book, The Double Helix. by Lynne Osman Elkin - California State University, Hayward In 1962, James Watson, then at Harvard University, and Cambridge University's Francis Crick stood next to Maurice Wilkins from King's College, London, to receive the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their "discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material." Watson and Crick could not have proposed their celebrated structure for DNA as early in 1953 as they did without access to experimental results obtained by King's College scientist Rosalind Franklin. Franklin had died of cancer in 1958 at age 37, and so was ineligible to share the honor. Her conspicuous absence from the awards ceremony--the dramatic culmination of the struggle to determine the structure of DNA--probably contributed to the neglect, for several decades, of Franklin's role in the DNA story. She most likely never knew how significantly her data influenced Watson and Crick's proposal. Franklin was born 25 July 1920 to Muriel Waley Franklin and merchant banker Ellis Franklin, both members of educated and socially conscious Jewish families. They were a close immediate family, prone to lively discussion and vigorous debates at which the politically liberal, logical, and determined Rosalind excelled: She would even argue with her assertive, conservative father. Early in life, Rosalind manifested the creativity and drive characteristic of the Franklin women, and some of the Waley women, who were expected to focus their education, talents, and skills on political, educational, and charitable forms of community service. -
Jewels in the Crown
Jewels in the crown CSHL’s 8 Nobel laureates Eight scientists who have worked at Cold Max Delbrück and Salvador Luria Spring Harbor Laboratory over its first 125 years have earned the ultimate Beginning in 1941, two scientists, both refugees of European honor, the Nobel Prize for Physiology fascism, began spending their summers doing research at Cold or Medicine. Some have been full- Spring Harbor. In this idyllic setting, the pair—who had full-time time faculty members; others came appointments elsewhere—explored the deep mystery of genetics to the Lab to do summer research by exploiting the simplicity of tiny viruses called bacteriophages, or a postdoctoral fellowship. Two, or phages, which infect bacteria. Max Delbrück and Salvador who performed experiments at Luria, original protagonists in what came to be called the Phage the Lab as part of the historic Group, were at the center of a movement whose members made Phage Group, later served as seminal discoveries that launched the revolutionary field of mo- Directors. lecular genetics. Their distinctive math- and physics-oriented ap- Peter Tarr proach to biology, partly a reflection of Delbrück’s physics train- ing, was propagated far and wide via the famous Phage Course that Delbrück first taught in 1945. The famous Luria-Delbrück experiment of 1943 showed that genetic mutations occur ran- domly in bacteria, not necessarily in response to selection. The pair also showed that resistance was a heritable trait in the tiny organisms. Delbrück and Luria, along with Alfred Hershey, were awarded a Nobel Prize in 1969 “for their discoveries concerning the replication mechanism and the genetic structure of viruses.” Barbara McClintock Alfred Hershey Today we know that “jumping genes”—transposable elements (TEs)—are littered everywhere, like so much Alfred Hershey first came to Cold Spring Harbor to participate in Phage Group wreckage, in the chromosomes of every organism. -
Genes, Genomes and Genetic Analysis
© Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC © Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC NOT FOR SALE OR DISTRIBUTION NOT FOR SALE OR DISTRIBUTION © Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC © Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC NOT FOR SALE OR DISTRIBUTION NOT FOR SALE OR DISTRIBUTION © Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC © Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC NOT FOR SALE OR DISTRIBUTION NOT FOR SALE OR DISTRIBUTION © Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC © Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC NOT FOR SALE OR DISTRIBUTION NOT FOR SALE OR DISTRIBUTION © Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC © Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC NOT FOR SALE OR DISTRIBUTION NOT FOR SALE OR DISTRIBUTION UNIT 1 © Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC © Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC NOT FOR SALE OR DISTRIBUTION NOT FOR SALE OR DISTRIBUTION © Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC © Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC NOT FORDefining SALE OR DISTRIBUTION and WorkingNOT FOR SALE OR DISTRIBUTION with Genes © Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC © Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC NOT FOR SALE OR DISTRIBUTION NOT FOR SALE OR DISTRIBUTION Chapter 1 Genes, Genomes, and Genetic Analysis Chapter 2 DNA Structure and Genetic Variation © Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC © Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC NOT FOR SALE OR DISTRIBUTION NOT FOR SALE OR DISTRIBUTION © Molekuul/Science Photo Library/Getty Images. © Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC © Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC NOT FOR SALE OR DISTRIBUTION NOT FOR SALE OR DISTRIBUTION © Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC. NOT FOR SALE OR DISTRIBUTION 9781284136609_CH01_Hartl.indd 1 08/11/17 8:50 am © Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC