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Timeline of biology and organic chemistry

Timeline of biology and organic chemistry

320 BC - Theophrastus begins the systematic study of botany
1658 - Jan Swammerdam observes red blood cells under a microscope
1663 - Robert Hooke sees cells in cork using a microscope
1668 - Francesco Redi disproves theories of the spontaneous generation of maggots[?] in putrefying matter
1676 - Anton van Leeuwenhoek observes protozoa and calls them "animalcules
1677 - Anton van Leeuwenhoek observes spermatozoa
1683 - Anton van Leeuwenhoek observes bacteria
1765 - Lazzaro Spallanzani disproves many theories of the spontaneous generation of cellular life
1771 - Joseph Priestley discovers that plants convert carbon dioxide into oxygen
1798 - Thomas Malthus discusses human population growth and food production in An Essay on the Principle of Population
1801 - Jean Lamarck begins the detailed study of invertebrate taxonomy
1809 - Jean Lamarck proposes an inheritance of acquired characteristics theory of evolution
1817 - Pierre-Joseph Pelletier[?] and Joseph-Bienaime Caventou[?] isolate chlorophyll
1828 - Karl von Baer discovers the eggs of mammals
1828 - Friedrich Woehler synthesizes urea; first synthesis of an organic compound
1836 - Theodor Schwann discovers pepsin in extracts from the stomach lining; first isolation of an animal enzyme
1837 - Theodor Schwann shows that heating air will prevent it from causing putrefaction
1838 - Matthias Schleiden discovers that all living plant tissue is composed of cells
1839 - Theodor Schwann discovers that all living animal tissue is composed of cells
1856 - Louis Pasteur states that microorganisms produce fermentation
1858 - Charles R. Darwin and Alfred Wallace independently propose natural selection theories of evolution
1858 - Rudolf Virchow proposes that cells can only arise from pre-existing cells
1862 - Louis Pasteur convincingly disproves the spontaneous generation of cellular life
1865 - Gregor Mendel presents his experiments on the crossbreeding of pea plants and postulates dominant and recessive factors
1865 - Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz realizes that benzene is composed of carbon and hydrogen atoms in a hexagonal ring
1869 - Friedrich Miescher discovers nucleic acids in the nuclei of cells
1874 - Jacobus van 't Hoff and Joseph-Achille Le Bel[?] advance a three-dimensional stereochemical representation of organic molecules and propose a tetrahedral carbon atom
1876 - Oskar Hertwig[?] and Hermann Fol[?] show that fertilized eggs possess both male and female nuclei
1884 - Emil Fischer[?] begins his detailed analysis of the compositions and structures of sugars
1898 - Martinus Beijerinck uses filtering experiments to show that tobacco mosaic disease is caused by something smaller than a bacteria which he names a virus
1906 - Mikhail Tsvett[?] discovers the chromatography technique for organic compound separation
1907 - Ivan Pavlov demonstrates conditioned responses with salivating dogs
1907 - Emil Fischer artificially synthesizes peptide amino acid chains and thereby shows that amino acids in proteins are connected by amino group-acid group bonds
1911 - Thomas Morgan proposes that Mendelian factors are arranged in a line on chromosomes
1926 - James Sumner[?] shows that the urease enzyme is a protein
1928 - Otto Diels[?] and Kurt Alder[?] discover the Diels-Alder cycloaddition reaction[?] for forming ring molecules
1929 - Phoebus Levene[?] discovers the sugar deoxyribose in nucleic acids
1929 - Edward Doisy[?] and Adolf Butenandt[?] independently discover estrone[?]
1930 - John Northrop[?] shows that the pepsin enzyme is a protein
1931 - Adolf Butenandt[?] discovers androsterone[?]
1932 - Hans Krebs discovers the urea cycle
1933 - Tadeus Reichstein[?] artificially synthesizes vitamin C; first vitamin synthesis
1935 - Rudolf Schoenheimer[?] uses deuterium as a tracer to examine the fat storage system of rats
1935 - Wendell Stanley[?] crystallizes the tobacco mosaic virus
1935 - Konrad Lorenz describes the imprinting behavior of young birds
1937 - Theodosius Dobzhansky links evolution and genetic mutation in Genetics and the Origin of Species
1938 - A living coelacanth is found off the coast of southern Africa
1940 - Donald Griffin[?] and Robert Galambos[?] announce their discovery of sonar echolocation by bats
1942 - Max Delbruck and Salvador Luria demonstrate that bacterial resistance to virus infection is caused by random mutation and not adaptive change
1944 - Oswald Avery shows that DNA carries the genetic code in pneumococci[?] bacteria
1944 - Robert Woodward[?] and William von Eggers Doering[?] synthesize quinine
1948 - Erwin Chargaff shows that in DNA the number of guanine units equals the number of cytosine units and the number of adenine units equals the number of thymine units
1951 - Robert Woodward[?] synthesizes cholesterol and cortisone
1952 - Alfred Hershey[?] and Martha Chase[?] use radioactive tracers to show that DNA is the genetic material in bacteriophage viruses
1952 - Fred Sanger[?], Hans Tuppy[?], and Ted Thompson[?] complete their chromatographic analysis of the insulin amino acid sequence
1952 - Rosalind Franklin uses X-ray diffraction to study the structure of DNA and suggests that its sugar-phosphate backbone is on its outside
1953 - James Watson and Francis Crick propose a double helix structure for DNA
1953 - Max Perutz and John Kendrew[?] determine the structure of hemoglobin using X-ray diffraction studies
1953 - Stanley Miller shows that amino acids can be formed when simulated lightning is passed through vessels containing water, methane, ammonia, and hydrogen
1955 - Severo Ochoa discovers RNA polymerase enzymes
1955 - Arthur Kornberg[?] discovers DNA polymerase enzymes
1960 - Juan Oro[?] finds that concentrated solutions of ammonium cyanide in water can produce the nucleotide organic base adenine
1960 - Robert Woodward[?] synthesizes chlorophyll
1967 - John Gurden[?] uses nuclear transplantation to clone a clawed frog[?]; first cloning of a vertebrate
1968 - Fred Sanger uses radioactive phosphorus as a tracer to chromatographically decipher a 120 base long RNA sequence
1970 - Hamilton Smith[?] and Daniel Nathans[?] discover DNA restriction enzymes
1970 - Howard Temin[?] and David Baltimore independently discover reverse transcriptase enzymes
1972 - Robert Woodward[?] synthesizes vitamin B-12
1972 - Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge[?] propose punctuated equilibrium effects in evolution
1974 - Manfred Eigen[?] and Manfred Sumper[?] show that mixtures of nucleotide monomers and RNA replicase[?] will give rise to RNA molecules which replicate, mutate, and evolve
1974 - Leslie Orgel[?] shows that RNA can replicate without RNA-replicase and that zinc aids this replication
1977 - John Corliss[?], Jack Dymond[?], Louis Gordon[?], John Edmond[?], Richard von Herzen[?], Robert Ballard, Kenneth Green[?], David Williams[?], Arnold Bainbridge[?], Kathy Crane[?], and Tjeerd van Andel[?] discover chemosynthetically based animal communities located around submarine hydrothermal vents[?] on the Galapagos Rift[?]
1977 - Walter Gilbert and Allan Maxam[?] present a rapid gene sequencing technique which uses cloning, base destroying chemicals, and gel electrophoresis
1977 - Fred Sanger and Alan Coulson[?] present a rapid gene sequencing technique which uses dideoxynucleotides[?] and gel electrophoresis
1978 - Fred Sanger presents the 5,386 base sequence for the virus PhiX174; first sequencing of an entire genome
1983 - Kary Mullis invents the polymerase chain reaction
1984 - Alec Jeffreys devises a genetic fingerprinting method
1985 - Harry Kroto[?], J.R. Heath[?], S.C. O'Brien[?], R.F. Curl[?], and Richard Smalley discover the unusual stability of the carbon-60 Buckminsterfullerene molecule and deduce its structure
1990 - Wolfgang Kratschmer[?], Lowell Lamb[?], Konstantinos Fostiropoulos[?], and Donald Huffman[?] discover that Buckminsterfullerene can be separated from soot[?] because it is soluble in benzene

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