1. Genetics Slides courtesy of Maureen Giacomazza , RN

2. History – From Mendel to Monica
1866 – Austrian botanist and monk Gregor Mendel proposes basic laws of heredity.
1883 – Francis Galton (cousin of Charles Darwin) advocate for improving the human race by means of selective breeding. Coins the word “eugenics”.
1932 – Aldous Huxley’s novel “Brave New World” presents the view (and difficulties) of genetic engineering.

3. History – From Mendel to Monica
1953 – American biochemist James Watson and British biophysicist Francis Crick announce their discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA.
Win the Nobel Prize for their discovery.

4. History – From Mendel to Monica
1973 – American biochemists Cohen and Boyer mark the beginning of genetic engineering with an experiment on toads.
1978 – Scientists from California clone the gene for human insulin (Recombinant DNA research)

5. History – From Mendel to Monica
1985 – First use of genetic fingerprinting in a criminal investigation.

6. History – From Mendel to Monica
1990 – American geneticist W. French Anderson performs the first gene therapy on a 4-year-old girl with an immune system disorder called SCID.
(the “boy in the bubble”)

7. History – From Mendel to Monica
1990 – Publication of Michael Crichton’s novel Jurassic Park in which bioengineered dinosaurs roam a theme park with deadly results.

8. History – From Mendel to Monica
1995 – Former football player O.J. Simpson is found not guilty in a high-profile double murder trial. DNA plays a prominent but apparently unpersuasive role.

9. History – From Mendel to Monica
Scottish researchers, led by Ian Wilmut, report that they have cloned a sheep. Named “Dolly” because she was cloned from an adult ewe’s mammary gland.

10. History – From Mendel to Monica
1998 – DNA analysis of stains on a blue dress worn by Monica Lewinsky.

11. History – From Mendel to Monica and beyond!
1998 – Two research teams succeed in growing embryonic stem cells.
1998 – Scientists in Japan clone eight identical calves using cells taken from a single adult cow.
2003 – The Human Genome Project’s current target date for sequencing all
human DNA.