Principles of Genetics and Breeding

1.1.5 Historical events related to genetics

Classical Genetics

1865 -Gregor Mendel "father of genetics" – hybridization experiments in pea plant.

1869 -Frederich Miescher - Nucleic acid was isolated from nuclei of pus cells.

1890 - Retziat and Katschenko -The work on fish chromosomes began.

1900 - Tschermak, Hugo De Vries and Carl Correns –Rediscovery of Mendel’s work.

1903 - Walter Sutton hypothesizes that chromosomes, which segregate in a Mendelian fashion, are hereditary units

1905 - William Bateson coined the term"genetics" .

1908 - Hardy and Weinberg – Developed basic laws governing population genetics.

1909 - Wilhelm Johannsen coined the term "Gene & Genotype"

1910 - T.H.Morgan - Chromosomes have hereditary functions, genes reside on chromosomes - laid foundation for genetics through work on Drosophila which is considered as "Cindrella of genetics".

1911 - Hertwig – Increasing radiation to sperm results in the decrease of survival of embryos, after which a further increase in dose led to an improvement in survival rate, known as “Hertwig effect”.

1913 - Alfred Sturtevant makes the first genetic map of a chromosome, show chromosomes containing linear arranged genes.

1914 – George Harrison Shull – Superiority of hybrid was termed as heterosis.

1920 - Levine and Jones - Two kinds of nucleicacids (RNA & DNA).

1920 - Johannes Schmidt – Sex linked inheritance in guppy

1923 - Linkage groups in fish were first detected by Winge .

1925 - Embody and Hayford conducted first genetics research, strain comparison in rainbow trout.

1928 - Frederick Griffith discovers that hereditary material from dead bacteria can be incorporated into live bacteria-bacterial transformation.

1937 - Von Ihering – Hypophysation, a technique using pituitary extracts to induce spawning in fish.

1931 - H.J. Muller - Production of mutation by X-ray in Drosophila

1941 - Beadle and Tatum - showed that genes encode proteins; one gene-one enzyme hypothesis.