GENE
The Lancet: "Gene
Paddy Ricard email address a
The rediscovery of Gregor Mendel's laws of inheritance in 1900 by Hugo de Vries, Erich von Tschermak, and Carl Correns launched the new science of genetics, as William Bateson christened it in 1906. In 1909, Wilhelm Johannsen introduced the term gene to designate the fundamental unit of heredity controlling the transmission of a single character in Mendelian genetics.
In the first three decades of the 20th century, rapid progress in genetics saw the discovery of many genes. Thomas Morgan's work on fruit fly Drosophila confirmed that genes were located on chromosomes within the nucleus and showed that their position could be mapped on each chromosome. But crucial questions remained unanswered: what exactly was a gene? how did it self-replicate? and what was its mode of action?
The study of microorganisms, and the inspiration provided by nuclear physics, proved crucial in answering these questions. In 1941, George Beadle and Edward Tatum showed that each gene controlled the synthesis of an enzyme. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) was shown to be the constituent of genes by Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod, and Maclyn McCarty in 1944. In 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick famously discovered the double-helix structure of DNA. 8 years later, Marshall Nirenberg and Heinrich Matthaei revealed the direct correspondence between the sequence of DNA bases and the sequence of aminoacids of a protein, and by 1966 biologists had deciphered the entire genetic code. Genes were now linear segments of DNA directly encoding the aminoacid sequence of proteins, each of which was the expression of a character. The discovery of messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) by Fran�ois Jacob and Jacques Monod, in 1960, showed how the link between DNA and proteins was effected in vivo.
The advances of recombinant DNA technology from the mid-1970s allowed biologists to routinely isolate and sequence a gene, and compare it to other DNA sequences. The Human Genome Project, launched in 1990, embodied the idea that the genome was the book of life. But it has become clear that sequence information alone cannot adequately explain biological function. Ironically, the completion of the Human Genome Project at the beginning of the 21st century coincides with the beginning of a new era, in which our vision of the gene will need to be redefined.
Affiliations
a Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL"
Paddy Ricard email address a
The rediscovery of Gregor Mendel's laws of inheritance in 1900 by Hugo de Vries, Erich von Tschermak, and Carl Correns launched the new science of genetics, as William Bateson christened it in 1906. In 1909, Wilhelm Johannsen introduced the term gene to designate the fundamental unit of heredity controlling the transmission of a single character in Mendelian genetics.
In the first three decades of the 20th century, rapid progress in genetics saw the discovery of many genes. Thomas Morgan's work on fruit fly Drosophila confirmed that genes were located on chromosomes within the nucleus and showed that their position could be mapped on each chromosome. But crucial questions remained unanswered: what exactly was a gene? how did it self-replicate? and what was its mode of action?
The study of microorganisms, and the inspiration provided by nuclear physics, proved crucial in answering these questions. In 1941, George Beadle and Edward Tatum showed that each gene controlled the synthesis of an enzyme. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) was shown to be the constituent of genes by Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod, and Maclyn McCarty in 1944. In 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick famously discovered the double-helix structure of DNA. 8 years later, Marshall Nirenberg and Heinrich Matthaei revealed the direct correspondence between the sequence of DNA bases and the sequence of aminoacids of a protein, and by 1966 biologists had deciphered the entire genetic code. Genes were now linear segments of DNA directly encoding the aminoacid sequence of proteins, each of which was the expression of a character. The discovery of messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) by Fran�ois Jacob and Jacques Monod, in 1960, showed how the link between DNA and proteins was effected in vivo.
The advances of recombinant DNA technology from the mid-1970s allowed biologists to routinely isolate and sequence a gene, and compare it to other DNA sequences. The Human Genome Project, launched in 1990, embodied the idea that the genome was the book of life. But it has become clear that sequence information alone cannot adequately explain biological function. Ironically, the completion of the Human Genome Project at the beginning of the 21st century coincides with the beginning of a new era, in which our vision of the gene will need to be redefined.
Affiliations
a Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL"
posted by Aloyzio Achutti at 9:25 AM
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