Discovery Of DNA

Question 1

Discovered that inherited traits are determined by discrete units or genes passed on from parents

Answer 1

Gregor Mendel (1866)

Question 2

Discovered DNA

Isolated something new from the nuclei of eukaryotic cells

Answer 2

Freidrich Miescher (1868)

Question 3

Worked with fruit flies (eye color)

Discovered genes are located onchromosomes

Answer 3

Thomas Hunt Morgan (1910)

Question 4

Studied effect of virulent vs non-virulent bacteria injected into mice

Believed that the transforming agent was an inheritance molecule

Answer 4

Frederick Griffith (1928)

Question 5

Reported that “transforming agent” in Griffith’s experiment was DNA

Also used the Pneumococcus bacteria in test tubes (not mice)

Answer 5

• Oswald Avery
• Colin Macleod
• Maclyn McCarthy
  (1944)

Question 6

Discovered 1:1 ratio of adenine to thymine and guanine to cytosine in DNA

Answer 6

Edwin Chargaff (1950)

Question 7

Photographed DNA using X-ray crystallography

Awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Watson and Crick

Worked with Rosalind Franklin

Answer 7

Maurice Wilkins (1952)

Question 8

Proposed the triple helix structure of DNA

Answer 8

Linus Pauling

1954

Question 9

Obtained sharp x-ray diffraction photographs of DNA

Answer 9

Rosalind Franklin (1952)

Question 10

Confirmed DNA was genetic material

DNA, not protein, is the hereditary material

Answer 10

Alfred Hershey & Martha Chase

1952

Question 11

Discovered double helix structure

Solved the 3dimensional structure of DNA molecule

Answer 11

James Watson & Francis Crick