G

In the United States, the first in vivo gene editing intervention is carried out, therefore not in cell culture in the laboratory but directly on a patient suffering from Hunter syndrome. The therapy, tested by the Californian Sangamo Therapeutics, involves the use of a viral

China: Crispr in vitro, in a patient suffering from lung cancer: immune cells had been edited in such a way as to deactivate a gene (PD-1) that blocks the immune response against tumor cells, and were then transplanted back into the patient’s body with the

The US FDA approves the use of mosquito genetic modification (GMO) techniques to combat the spread of the Zika virus, which has caused so much pain and death in Brazil and other nations, and is now also showing up in Florida. The approved technique was

Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. Insertion of the single human Frizzled-8 gene into a mouse fetus causes the brain to grow disproportionately, as occurs in Homo Sapiens.

In the article “A semi-synthetic organism with an expanded genetic alphabet” published in Nature, researchers Denis A. Malyshev, Kirandeep Dhami, Thomas Lavergne, Tingjian Chen, Nan Dai, Jeremy M. Foster, Ivan R. Corrêa, Floyd E Romesberg, of The Scripps Research Institute, in La Jolla, California, demonstrate

Improvement of the CRISPR-Cas9 tool, which allows multiple targeted modifications of any DNA in vitro, for purposes such as: plants resistant to fungi and diseases, animal models of a disease, healing defective organs, reducing cholesterol levels, repairing stem cells in vitro , block AIDS infection,

Cholera is raging in Haiti, already devastated by the earthquake. There is a rumor among the people, denied by the government, that it was imported by UN soldiers from Nepal, part of the earthquake rescuers. But a study of the genome of Vibro Cholera from

Ronald DePinho of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston demonstrates in an experiment on mice that with appropriate chemical signals it is possible to make a suitably genetically modified organism rejuvenate. The DNA of mice is modified so that it does not express telomerase,

Craig Venter’s group develops the first artificial cell in the laboratory, controlled by a synthetic genetic heritage. Venter had already created the Genome Project in the race to sequence our DNA, arriving first, and had already in the past chemically synthesized the genome of a

Svante Paabo and his team sequence and identify the mitochondrial DNA (mDNA) of Denisovan Homo, extracted from a tiny phalanx of the little finger of a female hand, found in a cave in the Altai Mountains, Central Asia, in caves also inhabited , at different

The team of experts led by Danish scientists Eske Willerslev and Morten Rasmussen analyzes the ancient remains of one of our ancestor who lived 4000 years ago on the west coast of Greenland, on the island of Qeqertasussuk. The remains were found in 1986, together

Svante Paabo and his collaborators demonstrate that 2% of human DNA from non-African populations derives from Neanderthal Homo, a small but significant percentage, and well above the error threshold. Neanderthal Homo, after all, is not totally extinct: he lives inside us.

A team of scientists from Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina discovers the presence of stem cells in amniotic fluid

Shinya Yamanaka and colleagues, from Kyoto University, publish an article in Cell in which they announce that they have regressed adult mouse fibroblasts to the embryonic stem cell stage; the research will be confirmed in June 2007 by two American research groups

Dave Deamer (University of California in Santa Cruz), Dan Branton (Harvard) and George Church (Harvard Medical School) develop the DNA sequencing technique called Nanopore Sequencing based on nanotechnology: in practice a single-stranded DNA is passed through electrical attraction through a 1.5nm pore thus varying the

Californian scientists manage to repair the spinal column of mice with stem cells

Advanced Cell Technology announces that it has cloned the human genetic heritage for therapeutic purposes: to produce stem cells (“mother cells”)

At Juntendo University in Tokyo the genetic code of staphylococcus is decoded

The human genome is published (Celera Genomics publishes in the American journal Science while the Anglo-American public consortium Human Genome Project publishes in the English journal Nature); turns out to be composed of only 30,000 genes (against the 90,000 expected)

Celera and the international consortium (USA, UK, France, Germany, China) Human Genome Project announce the mapping of 95% of the human genome, in the presence of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair

1000 British pounds sequence 10,000 bases of DNA; in 1968 20 were sequenced

The journal Nature publishes the almost complete sequence (99.7% of base pairs) of human chromosome 21 (the smallest of the 24, with only 250 of the 100,000 genes, chromosome 21 has 33,546,361 base pairs)

Svante Paabo publishes an article in Nature Genetics in which he underlines that Neanderthal Homo, based on the DNA sequencing of some specimens, probably had a small genetic variation, as did Homo Sapiens, indicating that it was the result of a a moment in which

A team of scientists from UK, Japan, USA, Canada, Sweden reveal the genetic mapping of human chromosome 22 (545 genes and 134 known pseudo-genes), the second smallest, consists of 33 million base pairs and could contain up to 1000 genes

Robert Lanza of Advanced Cell Technology announces the successful cloning of man; the experiment was interrupted for ethical reasons after 12 days

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin and John Hopkins University isolate human embryonic stem cells

Researchers at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh clone a sheep generating Dolly

The genetic map of Escherichia coli is completed. It is the first living being to be completely sequenced with the determination of its 4.5 million bases and 4288 genes. After ten years, the functioning of 85% of them and their interactions will already be known,

Start of mass application of genetically modified crops: in 6 years crops will grow to 53 million hectares in 13 countries: USA, China, Canada, Argentina, South Africa, Australia, Germany, Spain; mainly these are Soybeans, Corn, Rapeseed

First genome of a eukaryote (cell with nucleus) completely decoded: the yeast Saccharomyces Cervisiae

A team from the University of Wisconsin isolates embryonic stem cells in rhesus macaques

The complete Haemophilus Influenzae genome is decoded

Linus Pauling dies in California at the age of 93

The Food & Drug Administration approves the marketing of CalGene’s FlavrSavr tomato: the first genetically modified crop to be commercialized; FlavrSavr has been modified to rot much more slowly

A team of researchers from the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, discovers that at least one homosexuality gene is present in the human X chromosome

University of Munich. Matthias Hoss and Svante Paabo publish “The silica extraction method” with which they show the results of the first extraction of myochondrial DNA (mDNA) from animal bones tens of thousands of years old. In this case we are talking about Pleistocene horses

An article is published in the journal Science on the successful sequencing of the DNA of a 30 million year old termite, embedded in fossil amber. This will unleash the imagination of Hollywood writers and directors. However, it was later demonstrated that they had probably

Mimivirus discovered in air conditioning duct in England; it is an enormous virus (the size of a bacterium) and with 80% of the genetic material completely unknown before

First Gene Therapy intervention in Europe: it was carried out in Milan and is the first in the world to use bone marrow stem cells

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the monkey farm created by Stalin way back in 1929 (by decision of the CPSU in 1926) was dismantled in Georgia (Caucasian) with the aim of studying the possibility of creating an army of man-apes with intermediate properties

The Human Genome Project officially begins in the United States, for the complete mapping of the Human Genome

The first Gene Therapy intervention is carried out in the United States: it is carried out on a little girl suffering from SCID (severe combined immunodeficiency)

First targeted modification of an animal genome, that of the mouse.

Renato Dulbecco at a conference in Cold Spring Harbor launches the idea of mapping the entire Human Genome; initially taken in jest or as a science fiction undertaking, it will soon be taken seriously; Dulbecco, Nobel Prize winner, is Italian by birth, a Catholic partisan,

Methods for sequencing DNA are being automated

Steen Willadsen in Cambridge, UK, obtains 5 homozygous twin sheep by splitting a single embryo (embryo splitting)

The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) allows DNA sequences to be multiplied in vitro. The characterization and manipulation of DNA sequences in vitro become possible for a large part of the DNA existing in nature.

The American biochemist Kary Mullis of the Cetus Corporation invents PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction), a technique, which will be widely used, to quickly make billions of copies of a specific small sample of DNA, thus allowing only small samples to be taken and then amplify

Thomas Cech (Univ. of Colorado), Sidney Altman (Yale) discover that RNA can itself act as a weak catalyst (in the context of the theory that sees RNA as a precursor of DNA)

Creso wheat, patented only 7 years earlier by Bozzini and Mosconi, obtained in “gamma fields” with radioactive cesium, is the most cultivated in Italy.

Embryonic stem cells isolated in mice for the first time

Richard Dawkins and, later also Doolittle and Sapienza, Orgel and Crick, develop the Selfish Gene theory according to which the true purpose of DNA is to survive, the best way it has found is through the use of vehicles: animals ; this theory therefore explains

The physicist Tullio Regge, in Scientific American, talks for the first time about creso wheat, patented 5 years earlier by Bozzini and Mosconi, obtained in “gamma fields” with radioactive cesium. It will soon become (in 1982) the most cultivated in Italy.

Richmond and Smith hypothesize the extracellular nature of organelles (such as mitochondria) and micro-organisms that now inhabit the cell; therefore seen as invading organisms then assimilated by the cell when the way of reproduction of the parasitic genes becomes the same as that of the

First test tube baby at Oldham Hospital in England

Ed Lewis discovers that the bithorax malformation is caused by a mutation of a single gene, or a control gene

The two Americans Stanley Cohen and Herbert Boyer obtain somatostatin through genetic engineering

The first methods for sequencing DNA appear and the first human genes are isolated

Grun discovers phenotypic effects of non-nuclear genes (i.e. not present in chromosomes) such as genes in cellular organelles such as mitochondria or free in the cytoplasm

Cohen discovers the existence of Jumping Genes in bacteria: genes that jump from species to species by invading a chromosome of another species

Rome. Bozzini and Mosconi patented Creso wheat, obtained in “gamma fields” with radioactive cesium, which randomly modifies the genetics of the wheat arranged in a radial pattern around the sample. Then the most promising specimens are selected. The experiments are conducted by Barilla in collaboration

The two Americans Stanley Cohen and Herbert Boyer demonstrate that it is possible to manipulate DNA to obtain a drug produced by bacteria: somatostatin; it is the birth certificate of genetic engineering

The American Lynn Margulis for the first time hypothesizes the independent origin of organelles with DNA such as mitochondria and chloroplasts, in the form of parasitic prokaryotes

Bacterial enzymes, called restriction, cut specific sequences of DNA, and become fundamental tools for specifically characterizing and manipulating DNA in vitro

Marshall Niremberg discovers that the fundamental building blocks of the genetic code of Escherichia coli is the same as that of the frog and the guinea pig: it is a universal code that confirms the common origin of all living beings already predicted a century

The Scottish chemist Graham Cairns-Smith coins the theory called Inorganic Mineral according to which DNA is nothing more than the last link in a chain of cruder replicators whose first links would be made up of mineral replicators which would have acted perhaps in the

Linus Pauling awarded the Nobel Peace Prize

John Gurdon of Cambridge University transplants the nucleus of a frog embryo cell into an egg of another frog; the animal develops to the tadpole stage and then dies

WD Hamilton and GC Williams complete the gene’s point of view on evolution, in the context of neo-Darwinism: the fundamental unit of life is the Replicator, i.e. the gene, over time only the most efficient have survived in large quantities among them those who collaborated

Brenner and Jakob discover the role of mRNA

The theoretical model of Watson and Crick is confirmed with one of the most beautiful experiments in biology: Matthew Meselson and Frank Stahl feed Escherichia coli with heavy nitrogen (with an extra neutron) and discover that its DNA becomes heavier than that of bacteria fed

Kalmus demonstrates that police dogs can distinguish the odor of human sweat except that of identical twins, thus demonstrating the genetic polarization of sweat

Linus Pauling awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry

James Watson and Francis Crick publish the article A Structure For Doxyribose Nucleic Acid in Nature; Articles by Wilkins and Franklin are also published separately. Rosalind Franklin, who had made the findings under the microscope, died in 1958, while Watson and Crick won the Nobel

James Watson and Francis Crick discover the double helix structure of DNA

Pauling publishes his article on the alleged DNA triple helix, but before publishing it, a copy is given by Pauling’s son, Peter, to his laboratory colleagues James Watson and Francis Crick who will be encouraged to continue their research on the subject, and who shortly

Americans Robert Briggs and Thomas King transplant the nucleus of an embryo cell into a frog egg

Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase radioactively labeled the DNA of phages, later discovering traces of radioactivity in the infected bacterium, but not in the envelope left by the virus outside it. However, marking proteins has the opposite effect. This shows that it is not the

The first sequence of a protein is deciphered

Henrietta Lacks cells (HeLa cell line) are cloned as part of research for the cure of cancer; within half a century the culture of HeLa cells will take on industrial dimensions: tons per day; all, technically, clones of Henrietta Lacks