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Gregor Mendel
Known as the "Father of Genetics" discovered the fundamental laws of inheritance through his work with pea plants. Mendel's Laws of Heredity include; The Law of Segregation, The Law of Independent Assortment and The Law of Dominance. His works were published in 1865 -
Friedrich Miescher
He determined that nuclein was made up of hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and phosphorus and there was an unique ratio of phosphorus to nitrogen. His paper on nuclein was published in 1871 two years after his discovery. -
Theodore Boveri
Showed that chromosomes remain organized units through the process of cell division, and he demonstrated that sperm and egg cells each contribute the same number of chromosomes. -
Walter Sutton
Sutton deduced that chromosomes are the basis of heredity, and that the reduction of chromosomes in meiosis is directly related to Mendel's laws of inheritance. -
Phoebus Levene
He characterized the different forms of nucleic acid, DNA from RNA, and found that DNA contained adenine, guanine, thymine, cytosine, deoxyribose, and a phosphate group. -
Thomas Hunt Morgan
In 1911, he established the "Fly Room" at Columbia to determine how a species changed over time. His investigations over 11 years in the "Fly Room" provided the evidence for the chromosomal theory of heredity, genetic linkage, chromosomal crossing over and non-disjunction. -
Rosalind Franklin
She deduced the basic dimensions of DNA strands, and that the phosphates were on the outside of what was probably a helical structure. Also made contributions to the understanding of the molecular structures of DNA, RNA, viruses, coal, and graphite. The X-ray images she produced were used to determine the helical structure of DNA. -
Maurice Wilkins
The X-ray diffraction images produced by him, Rosalind Franklin, and Raymond Gosling led to the deduction by James Watson and Francis Crick of the 3-dimensional helical nature of DNA. -
Erwin Chargaff
Chargaff discovered two rules that helped lead to the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA. The first rule was that in DNA the number of guanine units is equal to the number of cytosine units, and the number of adenine units is equal to the number of thymine units. The second rule was that the relative amounts of guanine, cytosine, adenine and thymine bases vary from one species to another. This hinted that DNA rather than protein could be the genetic material. -
James Watson
Best known as one of the co-discoverers of the structure of DNA in 1953 with Francis Crick and Rosalind Franklin. Also wrote "The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA", which was published in 1968. Determined the structure to of the DNA molecule to be shaped like a "twisted ladder" -
Linus Pauling
Proposed a triple-stranded helix structure for DNA. He proposed a three chained helix with a sugar-phosphate backbone at the centre. -
Francis Crick
In 1961, Francis Crick and Sydney Brenner provided genetic proof that a triplet code was used in reading genetic material.