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1956 US biochemist Arthur Kornberg (1918– ) discovers the enzyme DNA b
polymerase.
US molecular biologist Paul Berg (1926– ) identifies the nucleic acid later
known as transfer RNA.
1957 British biologist Alick Isaacs (1921–67) discovers interferon.
1959 Austrian-born British biochemist Max Perutz (1914–2002) determines the
structure of haemoglobin.
1960 South African-born British molecular biologist Sydney Brenner (1927– )
and French biochemist François Jacob (1920– ) discover messenger
RNA.
1961 British biochemist Peter Mitchell (1920–92) proposes the chemiosmotic
theory.
Brenner and Crick discover that the genetic code consists of a series of base
triplets.
1969 US biochemist Gerald Edelman (1929– ) discovers the amino acid sequence
of immunoglobulin G.
1970 US virologists Howard Temin (1934–94) and David Baltimore (1938– )
discover the enzyme reverse transcriptase.
US molecular biologist Hamilton Smith (1931– ) discovers restriction
enzymes.
1973 US biochemists Stanley Cohen (1935– ) and Herbert Boyer (1936– ) use
restriction enzymes to produce recombinant DNA.
1977 Sanger determines the complete base sequence of DNA in bacteriophage
φX174.
1984 British biochemist Alec Jeffreys (1950– ) devises DNA profiling.
1985 US biochemist Kary Mullis (1944– ) invents the polymerase chain reaction
for amplifying DNA.
1986 US pharmacologists Robert Furchgott (1916– ) and Louis Ignarro
(1941– ) demonstrate the importance of nitric oxide as a signal molecule in
the blood vascular system.
1988 US biochemist Peter Agre (1949– ) identifies a water-channel protein
(aquaporin) in the plasma membrane of cells.
1994 Beginnings of DNA chip technology.
1998 US biochemist Roderick MacKinnon (1956– ) reveals detailed three-
dimensional structure of potassium-ion channel in brain cells.
2001 US molecular biologist Harry Noller and colleagues produce first detailed
X-ray crystallographic image of a complete ribosome.
2002 First synthetic virus created by Eckard Wimmer and associates, based on
human poliovirus.
2004 A team led by David L. Spector produces the first real-time imaging of gene
transcription in a living cell, using different fluorescent markers to tag nucleic
acids and proteins.