Thread by @Alexis_Verger

Because I do believe that it's important to know the history of your field and inspired by @carlzimmer @matthewcobb & Michel Morange's books that contain some fantastic material for teaching, a thread with some #classicpaper in #molecularbiology #DNA

1⃣ 1944 Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod & Maclyn McCarty - DNA, not protein as was commonly believed, is the hereditary material for bacteria, and the cause of bacterial transformation jem.rupress.org/content/79/2/1…

2⃣ 1947 André Boivin & Roger Vendrely - a near forgotten 2 pages in French that suggest almost explicitly that DNA --> RNA --> protein link.springer.com/article/10.100…

3⃣ 1952 & 1953 Alexander Dounce - like Boivin & Vendrely, Dounce is one of the first to propose that DNA might serve as a template for the synthesis of RNA, which in turn serves as a template for the synthesis of proteins nature.com/articles/17254…

4⃣ 1952 Alfred Hershey & Martha Chase - They confirmed that DNA was the molecule of heredity jgp.rupress.org/content/36/1/39 a.k.a as the blender experiment

5⃣ 1953 The structure of DNA - Watson & Crick nature.com/articles/17173…, Franklin & Gosling nature.com/articles/17174…, Wilkins Stokes Wilson nature.com/articles/17173…

6⃣ 1956 & 1958 Francis Crick - The Central Dogma: once ‘information’ is passed into protein it cannot get out again profiles.nlm.nih.gov/ps/retrieve/Re…

7⃣ NOT the Central Dogma DNA -> RNA -> Protein (for more info see judgestarling.tumblr.com/post/177554581…)

8⃣ 1958 Francis Crick - The adaptor hypothesis: to explain how information encoded in DNA is used to specify the amino acid sequence of proteins en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptor_h…

9⃣ 1958 Mahlon Hoagland - discovery of the adaptors = soluble RNAs a.k.a. tRNA ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/13538965

1⃣0⃣ Vernon Ingram - The first demonstration that the abnormal haemoglobin in sickle cell anaemia patients is caused by an alteration in one amino acid nature.com/articles/18032…

1⃣1⃣ 1958 Matthew Meselson and Franklin W. Stahl - experimental proof of Semi-Conservative DNA Replication pnas.org/content/44/7/6…

1⃣2⃣1959 Pardee, Jacob & Monod sciencedirect.com/science/articl… a.k.a The PaJaMo experiment that supported the hypothesis that a molecule mediated the production of proteins from DNA (cytoplasmic messenger)

1⃣3⃣ 1961 Jacob & Monod - the fundamental basis of gene regulation, one of the most influential paper in the history of modern biology (& I am not saying that because Jacob & Monod were French 😬) sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

1⃣4⃣ 1961 Brenner, Jacob, Meselson nature.com/articles/19057… + Gros, Hiatt, Gilbert, Kurland, Risebrough, Watson nature.com/articles/19058… the discovery of messenger RNA (mRNA)

1⃣5⃣ for an historical point of view of the discovery of mRNA, see also this great recount by @matthewcobb cell.com/current-biolog…