Table 1 . Parallel time lines that trace the history of genetics and mammalian developmental genetics.
| Genetics | Mouse and developmental genetics | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Scientist(s) | Contribution | Scientist(s) | Contribution |
| 1850: Darwin | Evolution | 1850–1940s: Hans Spemann and the German school | Long history of descriptive and experimental embryolgy |
| 1866: Mendel | Laws of inheritance | ||
| 1900: Hugo de Vries, Carl Correns, and Erich von Tschermak | Rediscovery of Mendel | 1900: Miss Abbie Lathrop | Starts breeding “fancy mice” |
| 1906: William Castle and The Busey Institute | Founder of mouse genetics | ||
| 1910s: Thomas Hunt Morgan | Sex-linked inheritance, gene theory, principle of linkage, chromosome theory of inheritance | 1908–1920: C. C. Little, Leonell Strong | Development of inbred stains |
| 1927: H. J. Muller | X rays are mutagenic in Drosophila | 1927: Dobrovolskaia-Zavadskaia | Discovery of Brachury, the first developmental mutation in mice and its interaction with t alleles |
| 1928: Griffith | Transfer of DNA from one bacterium to another | 1929: C. C. Little | Founded The Jackson Laboratory |
| 1931: Barbara McClintock | Recombination is caused by a physical exchange of chromosomal pieces | 1930: An academically inbred group of geneticists | 31 loci and 7 linkage goups defined |
| 1933: L. C. Dunn and Salome Glueckshon-Schoenheimer | Effectively found developmental genetics with the study of the T/t-complex | ||
| 1935: Elizabeth Fekete | First successful transfer of fertilized ova | ||
| 1937: George Beadle and Boris Ephrussi | Foundation for one gene/one enzyme hypothesis | 1936: The Jackson Laboratory researchers | First link between cancer and viruses in mammals |
| 1941: George Beadle and Edward Tatum | One gene/one enzyme hypothesis | 1942–1948: George Snell | Develops congenic strains of mice—identical but for a small chromosomal segment—by breeding for differences only at the H2 locus. This opens new areas of immunogenetics. |
| 1944: Avery, McCloud, and Macarty | Nucleic acid is the vehicle of heredity | ||
| 1944: Barbara McClintock | Hypothesis of transposable elements to explain color variations in corn. | ||
| 1951: Rosalind Franklin | Obtained sharp X-ray diffraction photographs of DNA. | 1950: Margaret Dickie | Obese mouse is discovered. The first animal model for obesity, the mouse later proves to have a mutation key in identifying the leptin gene. |
| 1952: Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase | DNA rather than proteins carries genetic information | 1953–1956: L. B. Russell | Dominant white spotting and steel loci identified |
| 1953: Watson and Crick | Resolved the structure of DNA | 1954: Leroy Stevens | Biology of stem cells in teratocarcinomas in an inbred strain |
| 1956: Vernon Ingram | A single amino acid difference in a protein (hemoglobin) can cause a disease | 1958: Margret Green | Database of mouse linkages and loci, which forms the foundation of the Mouse Genome Database |
| 1960s: Susumu Ohno | The total amount of chromosomal material in mammals was the same. Mammalian X chromosomes are conserved among species. | ||
| 1961: F. Jacob and J. Monod | The operon | 1961: Mary Lyon | X inactivation, the Lyon Hypothesis |
| 1960s: Tarkowski and Mintz | Mouse embryonic chimeras | ||
| 1970: H. Temin and D. Baltimore | Reverse transcriptase | 1970: Elizabeth Russell and T Mayer. | Steel(Kit) and dominant white spotting (W). pioneers the use of bone marrow transplantation to cure a blood disorder in a mouse. |
| 1970: Hamilton O. Smith | Restriction enzymes | 1971: Alfred Knudson | Genetics of retinoblastoma, loss of heterozygosity |
| 1971: Don Bailey and Ben Taylor | Recombinant inbred strains used for mapping | ||
| 1972: M. N. Nesbitt and U. Francke | Chromosomal banding and the first official idiogram of the mouse was produced | ||
| 1976: M. Biship and H. Varmus | Oncogenes | 1973: Susumu Ohno | Conservation of synteny; bits of linkages among mammels are conserved. |
| 1977: P. Sharp and R. Roberts | Splicing | 1975: D. Solter and B. Knowles | Immunosurgery of mouse blastocyst |
| 1977: Sanger and Maxam and Gilbert | DNA sequencing | 1980: C. Nüsslein-Volhard, E. Wieschaus, and E. B. Lewis | Screen to identify a set of genes crucial for Drosophila embryogenesis |
| 1981: Mario R. Capecchi, Martin J. Evans, and Oliver Smithies | ES cells were first independently derived from mouse embryos by two groups who also showed that ES cells could contribute to an embryo to form a chimera. | ||
| 1982: Richard Palmiter and Ralph Brinster | Transgenic mice | ||
| 1983: Kary Mullis | Invented the polymerase chain reaction | 1992 : F. Bonhomme and J.-L. Guénet | Outcross to Mus subspecies to gain polymorphisms for mapping |
| 1984: Vernon Bode | ENU mutation at specific loci in the t-complex | ||
| 1983 : Nancy S. Wexler et al. | Huntington’s is first human disease to be genetically mapped | 1984: Surani and McGrath and Solter and Cattanach and Kirk | Imprinting |
| 1984: McGinnis et al. | Discovers that homeotic (Hox) regulatory genes, responsible for the basic body plan of most animals, are conserved from flies to mammals | ||
| 1985: A. J. Jeffreys | Use of mini/microsatellites for mapping and forensics | 1987: Mario R. Capecchi, Martin Evans, and Oliver Smithies | First knockout mouse |
| 1989: Francis Collins and Lap-Chee Tsui | Identified the gene causing cystic fibrosis | ||
| 1990: Various | Launch of the Human Genome Project | 1990: B. Herrmann et al. | Positionally cloned T |
| 1993: Victor Ambros et al. | Identified microRNAs in Caenorhabditis elegans | 1996: Ian Wilemut | First cloning of a mammal in sheep |
| 1997: R. Yanagimachi | First cloning of a mouse from a somatic cell | ||
| 2001: Francis Collins and Craig Venter | Sequence of the human genome | 2002: Mouse Genome Sequencing Consortium | Sequence of the mouse genome |
| 2000–present “Age of omics” | 2000–present: Systems biology | ||
| 2006–2007 | Pluripotent stem cells artificially derived from a mouse adult somatic cell by inducing a “forced” expression of specific genes | ||
This table includes a personal but not comprehensive choice of high points in genetics and in mammalian developmental genetics.