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Timeline Of Biology And Organic ChemistryA Timeline of significant events in biology and organic chemistry Before 1600 - c. 520 B.C. - Alcmon of Croton distinguished veins from arteries and discovered the optic nerve.
- c. 500 B.C. - Sushruta - wrote Sushruta Samhita describing over 120 surgical instruments, 300 surgical procedures and classified human surgery in 8 categories. Performed cosmetic surgery.
- c. 500 B.C. - Xenophanes examined fossils and speculated on the evolution of life.
- c. 350 B.C. - Aristotle attempted a comprehensive classification of animals. His written works included Historia Animalium, a general biology of animals, De Partibus Animalium, a comparative anatomy and physiology of animals, and De Generatione Animalium, on developmental biology.
- c. 320 BC - Theophrastos (or Theophrastus) begins the systematic study of botany.
- c. 300 B.C. - Herophilos dissected the human body.
- c. 300 B.C. - Diocles wrote the first known anatomy book and was the first to use the term anatomy.
- c. 50-70 - Historia Naturalis by Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus) was published in 37 volumes.
- 130-200 - Claudius Galen wrote numerous treatises on human anatomy.
- c. 1010 - Avicenna (Ibn Sina or Abu Ali al Hussein ibn Abdallah) published his Canon of Medicine (Kitab al-Qanun fi al-tibb).
1600-1800 1800-1899 1900-1949 1950-1989 - 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 D. 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.
- 1972 - SJ Singer and GL Nicholson develop the fluid mosaic model, which deals with the make-up of the membrane of all cells.
- 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.
- 1982 - Concept of prions introduced by Stanley B. Prusiner
- 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 buckminsterfullerene molecule and deduce its structure.
- 1986 - Alexander Klibanov demostrates that enzymes can function in non-aqueous environments.
1990-present See also Footnote The date at which the Sushruta Samhita was compiled is uncertain. A Tribute to Hinduism says Sushruta lived in the 5th century B.C., and so the date 500 B.C. may be too early. biology and organic chemistry
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