Major landmarks in DNA sequencing and molecular biology
1953
Discovery of the structure of the DNA double helix (Watson, Crick, Franklin).
1958
Prove the semi-conservative nature of dna replication (Meselson, Stahl)
1961
First dna triplet is decoded (Matthei, Nierenberg)
1972
Development of recombinant DNA technology, which permits isolation of defined fragments of DNA; prior to this, the only accessible samples for sequencing were from bacteriophage or virus DNA.
1972
The first gene is sequenced
1975
The first complete DNA genome to be sequenced is that of bacteriophage φX174
1977
Allan Maxam and Walter Gilbert publish “DNA sequencing by chemical degradation” [4].
Fred Sanger, independently, publishes “DNA sequencing by enzymatic synthesis”.
1980
Fred Sanger and Wally Gilbert receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
1982
Genbank starts as a public repository of DNA sequences.
Andre Marion and Sam Eletr from Hewlett Packard start Applied Biosystems in May, which comes to dominate automated sequencing.
Akiyoshi Wada proposes automated sequencing and gets support to build robots with help from Hitachi.
1984
Restriction fragment length polymorphism fingerprinting (Jeffreys)
Medical Research Council scientists decipher the complete DNA sequence of the Epstein-Barr virus, 170 kb.
1985
Kary Mullis and colleagues develop the polymerase chain reaction, a technique to replicate small fragments of DNA
1986
Leroy E. Hood’s laboratory at the California Institute of Technology and Smith announce the first semi-automated DNA sequencing machine.
1987
Applied Biosystems markets this first automated sequencing machine, the model ABI 370.
Walter Gilbert leaves the U.S. National Research Council genome panel to start Genome Corp., with the goal of sequencing and commercializing the data.
1990
The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIS) begins large-scale sequencing trials on Mycoplasma capricolum, Escherichia coli, Caenorhabditis elegans, and Saccharomyces cerevisiae (at 75 cents (US)/base).
BLAST algorithm for aligning sequences published (Lipman, Myers).
Capillary electrophoresis published (Barry Karger, Lloyd Smith, Norman Dovichi).
Official start of the Human Genome Project
1991
Craig Venter develops strategy to find expressed genes with ESTs (Expressed Sequence Tags).
Uberbacher develops GRAIL, a gene-prediction program.
1992
Craig Venter leaves NIH to set up The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR).
William Haseltine heads Human Genome Sciences, to commercialize TIGR products.
Wellcome Trust begins participation in the Human Genome Project.
Simon et al. develop BACs (Bacterial Artificial Chromosomes) for cloning.
First chromosome physical maps published:
-Page et al. – Y chromosome[28];
-Cohen et al. chromosome 21[29].
-Lander – complete mouse genetic map[30];
-Weissenbach – complete human genetic map[31].
1993
Wellcome Trust and MRC open Sanger Centre, near Cambridge, UK.
The GenBank database migrates from Los Alamos (DOE) to NCBI (NIH).
1995
Venter, Fraser and Smith publish first sequence of free-living organism, Haemophilus influenzae (genome size of 1.8 Mb).
Richard Mathies et al. publish on sequencing dyes (PNAS, May)[32].
Michael Reeve and Carl Fuller, thermostable polymerase for sequencing[8].
1996
International HGP partners agree to release sequence data into public databases within 24 hours.
International consortium releases genome sequence of yeast S. cerevisiae (genome size of 12.1 Mb).
Yoshihide Hayashizaki’s at RIKEN completes the first set of full-length mouse cDNAs.
1997
Blattner, Plunkett et al. publish the sequence of E. coli (genome size of 5 Mb)[33]
First cloned animal, Sheep “Dolly”, is born (Wilmut)
1998
Phil Green and Brent Ewing of Washington University publish ìphredî for interpreting sequencer data (in use since ë95)[34].
Venter starts new company (Celera), will sequence HG in 3 yrs for $300m.
Wellcome Trust doubles support for the HGP to $330 million for 1/3 of the sequencing.
NIH & DOE goal: “working draft” of the human genome by 2001.
Sulston, Waterston et al finish sequence of C. elegans (genome size of 97Mb)[35].
1999
NIH moves up completion date for rough draft, to spring 2000.
NIH launches the mouse genome sequencing project.
First sequence of human chromosome 22 published[36].
2000
Celera and collaborators sequence fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster (genome size of 180Mb) – validation of Venter’s shotgun method. HGP and Celera debate issues related to data release.
HGP consortium publishes sequence of chromosome 21.[37]
HGP & Celera jointly announce working drafts of HG sequence, promise joint publication.
Estimates for the number of genes in the human genome range from 35,000 to 120,000.
International consortium completes first plant sequence, Arabidopsis thaliana (genome size of 125 Mb).
2001
HGP consortium publishes Human Genome Sequence draft in Nature (15 Feb)[38].
Celera publishes the Human Genome sequence[39].
2002
HapMap project initiated to decipher human genetic variation
2005
420,000 VariantSEQr human resequencing primer sequences published on new NCBI Probe database.
Genographic project launched to study human migration
2007
A set of closely related species (12 Drosophilidae) are sequenced, launching the era of phylogenomics.
Craig Venter publishes his full diploid genome
Source: Wikipedia and ABI
