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These pages represent a biased choice of
dates relevant to biology, obtained by compiling a great many
different sources, often using the original texts and not the
WWW; the information collected here does not use Wikipedia
which, by construction, relies on a process akin to a vote, and
changes over time in order to reflect some kind of a popular
consensus about knowledge rather than accurate knowledge. Care
has been taken to check information and rewrite it when needed; direct
access links to the original sources is provided whenever possible;
however date records still contain many errors; the links are
chosen to be as diverse as possible, they do not engage the responsability
of the author. Note however that many WWW links are generally
unstable, so that many might be obsolete despite regular checks.
Note that the links
in French and in English may differ. Notez que les liens en
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Please send comments and corrections here.
1920 is a turning point in the history of biology. Until
this date Europe had been at the centre of most discoveries,
with specific emphasis on chemistry in Germany, evolution in
the United Kingdom, zoology in Italy, microbiology in France,
and genetics in Russia. The first World-War completely changed
the picture: millions of young men died in Great Britain, France
and Germany, and social unrest in Russia led to the creation
of the Soviet Empire. The finances of Europe were in extremely
poor condition. The pursuit of research had therefore hard times
in Europe, while the increased wealth in America led to the flourishing
of many laboratories. As early as this date several prominent
European scientists started to emigrate to the USA. The trend
was further stimulated by the awful birth and development of
nazism in Germany, which culminated with the election of Hitler
as a chancellor in 1933, in a context where the soul of central
Europe was mainly of jewish descent. As a consequence, the centre
of the development of biology shifted to the USA, triggered by
first generation Americans, in a trend which is still quite visible
today. It seemed to us important, in this context, to present
not only positive facts about biology, but also misleading trends,
fakes and unethical behaviour. It is important to note that,
during this period, a general theory of "degeneracy" both
of individuals and of races was often favored. This had an impact
not only in genetics or anthropology, but also in statistics.
In parallel, the development of Lyssenkism in Soviet Union and
its satellite countries destroyed the local development of genetics,
and delayed for decades the advent of modern biology there. Science
is created by human beings, in precise socio-political contexts,
and it is far from the perfect image that some would like to
convey. This moment of history witnesses many fundamental developments
in the domains of catalysis, metabolism, cytology, evolution.
Most are very well known and cannot be developed here. We have
therefore chosen to place in the limelight discoveries or events
that are less well known, but have had important positive or
negative contributions to the development of biology. Remembering
past work is extremely useful to go against the present day arrogance
of some, who reinvent the wheel while claming that they have
made great contributions to science!
1920 In line with this date as a turning point in the
history of Biology, Hans Winkler (1877 - 1945),
professor of Botany at the University of Hamburg, coins in his
book Verbreitung und Ursache der Parthenogenesis the
term Genom, to indicate the whole set of genes of an
1920 Loewi shows
that a stimulating and inhibitory substance is released from
terminal branches of nerve fibers. This discovery leads to the
concept of nerve impulse transmission across junctions by means
of chemical mediators, later named neurotransmitters.
1920 Henry Eliot Howard (1873 - 1940) an obscure
English bird watcher, convinces the scientific world in his Territory
in bird life that, among other things, song is used by male
birds to mark their territory. He coins the word "territoriality" to
describe the behavior of male birds and began to investigate
the territorial behavior of mating birds. Territoriality is typically
manifested by aggression toward intruders.
1921 Spemann describes
effect of the amphibian dorsal lip region.
1921 Alfred F Hess (?-?) and Lester
J Unger (?-?) show that by simply exposing rachitic
children to sunlight, they are able to cure them of the disease.
By this time, rickets was still a severe problem in Scotland
and in parts of northern Europe. As a consequence of this work,
by the early 1920s two methods could be used to cure rickets:
cod-liver oil and exposure to sunlight or ultraviolet light.
1921 d'Hérelle publishes Le
bactériophage : Son rôle dans l'immunité,
where he reports his observations and the techniques used for
the study of bacteriophages, and where he postulates intracellular
multiplication of the virus.
1921 Morgan estimates
that genes have a diameter of 20-70 microns. The work of Harriet
Ephrussi-Taylor (1918 - 1968), analyzing gene inactivation
with X-rays, will show later that genes must be much smaller.
1921 John Newport Langley (1852 - 1925) distinguishes
functionally and gives a detailed description of the autonomic
1921 Loewi, and independently Henry Hallett Dale (London,
1875 - 1968) isolate a diffusible substance (named
"Vagusstoff" by the former) released by the
Newton Richards (1876 - 1966) establishes in
great detail the nature of renal glomerular filtration and
of selective tubular reabsorption. His studies kept confined
to amphibian kidney until 1941.
Gowland Hopkins (Eastbourne, 1861 - 1947) isolates
a substance which he names glutathione, widely distributed
in the cells of plants and animals that are rapidly multiplying.
Among his other outstanding contributions to science was
his discovery of a method for isolating tryptophan and for
identifying its structure.
Grant Banting (Alliston, Canada 1891- killed
in an air disaster in Newfoundland, 1941), Charles
Herbert Best (West Pembroke, Maine, USA, 1899
- 1978) and John
James Rickard Macleod (Cluny, Scotland, 1876
- Aberdeen, 1935) discover and isolate insulin and further
study its physiological properties.
1922 McCollum carries
on the naming of vitamins using alphabetical letters while showing
that experimentallly that rickets is caused by lack of a new
natural factor present in food, vitamin D. In this work he follows
the observations of British physician Edward
Mellanby. McCollum had decided
to pursue these studies further. From his own work on isolating
vitamin A, McCollum had found that certain foods
may contain more than one vitamin. Following up on Mellanby's
findings he tried by heating and aerating the oil to destroy
its vitamin A to discover what else cod-liver oil might contain.
As expected, the treated oil no longer cured night blindness
(due to lack of vitamin A). But it did remain effective against
rickets. This is how vitamin D was discovered.
1922 Kopec demonstrates
that pupation in the gypsy moth (Lymantria dispar) is
conditioned by an agent in the body fluid that originates in
the brain. Animals, debrained before the head critical period
formed, stay as permanent larvae.
Erlanger (San Francisco, California, 1874 -
1965) and Herbert
Spencer Gasser (Platteville, Wisconsin, 1888
- 1963), having adapted the cathode-ray oscillograph for
the study of nerve action potentials, find that the rates
of conduction of mammalian nerve fibers correspond to the
thickness of their sheaths.
1922 Walter Garstang (1868 - 1949), in contrast
with the widely held view of Haeckel, recognizes
that ontogeny does not always recapitulate phylogeny and later
proposes that chordates evolved from organisms resembling ascidians.
This important work is still not understood, as we still witness
popular views of recapitulation, not only in mass media papers
but also in scientific articles.
1922 Building on a work he started in 1913,
the Norwegian psychologist Thorleif Schjelderup-Ebbe (Kristiania,
Norge 1894 - Oslo 1976) establishes social
dominance hierarchies (pecking orders) in domestic fowl.
Ruzicka (Vukovar, Croatia, 1887 - Zürich,
1976) recognizes isoprene as the building block of carotenoids
as well as many other natural products.
1922-1923 Warburg reports
first measurements on the quantum efficiency of photosynthesis. Warburg's
manometric apparatus becomes a standard tool for measuring metabolism
in living cells.
1923 Johannes Nicolaus Brønsted (Varde,
1879 - 1947) defines acids as substances which act as proton
sources, and bases as substances which act as proton acceptors,
regardless of the solvent.
1923 Independently, Thomas Lowry (1874
- 1936) formulates his theory of acids and bases.
1923 Bjerrum uses
the strength constants of acids and bases to study the dissociation
of other compounds.
1923 George Charles de
Hevesy (Budapest, 1885 - Freiburg im Breisgau,
1966) initiates in Copenhagen research concerned with isotopic
separations. Together with Coster, he discovers
the element hafnium. He pioneers work in the use of isotopic
indicators both in inorganic and life sciences. Later, in
Freiburg, he was to be involved in the first clinical use
Keilin (1887 - 1963) rediscovers histohematins
(cytochromes) and demonstrates changes in their oxidation
state during respiratory activity.
1923 RO Herzog (?-?) and W Jancke (?-?)
apply their improvement of new X-ray crystallography techniques
in an article: On the Structure of the Cellulose and Silk
1923 Thunberg proposes that
water is the reducing agent in photosynthesis in an oxidation-reduction
reaction in which carbon dioxide is reduced and water is oxidized.
He also studies the oxidative degradation of foodstuffs in animals.
1923 Lemuel Roscoe Cleveland (1892 - ?) describes
the mutualistic relationship between termites and their intestinal
zooflagellates. He further analyses the effects of oxygenation
and starvation on the symbiosis between the termite Termopsis,
and its intestinal flagellate protists: Symbiosis between Termites
and Their Intestinal Protozoa. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1923
Staudinger (Worms, 1881 - 1965), who proposed
in 1920 that colloids were often large polymers proposes
to name them Makromoleküle (macromolecules)
and insists on the facts that their atoms are linked by "normal
(i.e. in our present terms, covalent bonds).
1924 Feulgen publishes his “Plasmalreaktion”,
which he had carried out together with his assistant Kurt
Voit (1895 - 1978) allowing one to visualize DNA in
the nucleus of cells. All nuclei (animal and plant) stain violet
after hydrolysis and staining with Schiff 's
reagent, the material is then squashed in acetocarmine or aceto-orcein.
Berger (Neuses, near Coburg, Thuringia 1873
- Jena, 1941) devises equipment to make the first encephalograms
(measurements of brain waves) of human subjects.
1924 Aleksandr Ivanovich Oparin (Moscow,
1894 - 1980) publishes a small book on chemical evolution where
he advances a heterotroph theory of the origin of life.
1924 Philipp Stoehr (?-?) obtains the development
of an embryonic heart by self-differentiation of trunk mesoderm
Bernstein (Halle, 1878 - Zürich, 1956),
a mathematician known for the Bernstein-Cantor-Schröder
theorem on the equivalence of sets (1897) uses statistics
to predict the way blood groups are inherited (inheritance
of multiple alleles at one locus).
1924 Bernardo Alberto Houssay (Buenos
Aires, 1887 - 1971) investigates the role of the hypophysis in
the regulation of carbohydrate metabolism and in diabetes.
(The) Svedberg (Fleräng, Sweden 1884 -
1971) invents the ultracentrifuge and uses it to determine
the sedimentation rates of proteins. This was to play a considerable
role in the establishment of the modern view of what are
macromolecules (creation of Molecular Biology).
1924-1928 Hans Karl
August Simon von
Euler-Chelpin (Augsburg, Germany, 1873 - 1964)
develops his studies on vitamin A and carotene, using marked
1925 Joseph Barcroft (Glen, Newry, 1872 - 1947)
while studying the role of hemoglobin in blood, demonstrates
its storage and release by organs such as the spleen.
1925 Fritz Baltzer (Berne, 1884 - 1974), a
former student of Boveri, discovers that sex
determination in some animals is not chromosomal and that juveniles
can be sexually ambipotent.
1925 Hans Molisch (Brünn (Brno), 1856
- 1937), Czechoslovakian botanist in Vienna, obtains the production
of oxygen by illuminating preparations of dried leaves.
1925 Cyrus Hartwell Fiske (1890
- 1978) and Yellagaprada SubbaRow (1896 - 1948)
establish a colorimetric
determination of phosphorus in living organisms.
1925 George Edward Briggs (1893 - 1985) and John Burdon
Sanderson Haldane (1892 - 1964) make important
refinements in the theory of enzyme steady-state kinetics.
1925 Alfred James Lotka (Lemberg, Osterreich,
1880 - New York, 1949) publishes his Elements of Physical
Biology that were to play a considerable role in population
genetics (and in mathematics as well).
Richards Minot (Boston, USA, 1885 - 1950) and William
Parry Murphy (Stoughton, Wisconsin, 1892 - 1987)
discover that feeding raw liver had a pronounced effect in
the treatment of pernicious anemia. This discovery led to
the eventual isolation of vitamin B12 and the identification
of yet another vitamin deficiency disease.
1925 Evert Gorter (Utrecht 1881 - Leiden 1954)
two Dutch scientists, extract membrane lipids from a known number
of red blood cells and calculate the corresponding surface area.
Then they create a monolayer of lipids on water: the surface
area was two times that of the surface area of red blood cells.
They conclude that membranes consist of two layers of lipids.
This is the beginning of the bilayer theory of biological membranes.
Rowan (1891 - 1957) after emigrating to Canada
in 1919, demonstrates the effect of photoperiod on on birds'
physiological readiness for mating and migration.
1925 Raymond Arthur Dart (Toowong,
Brisbane, Australia, 1893 - 1988) discovers the
Baby" fossil, now classified as Australopithecus
africanus. The find was especially significant because it
included a rough cast of the individual's brain.
1925-1928 G Koller (?-?) and Earle
B Perkins (?-?),
by means of blood transfusions, obtain evidence of the presence
of hormone-like substances regulating the activity of chromatophores
1925-1930 Levene elucidates
the structure of mononucleotides and suggests that they are the
building blocks of nucleic acids. He also isolates the carbohydrate
portion of nucleic acids and distinguishes deoxyribose from ribose.
He thinks that nucleic acids are complexes of a tetrad made of
the four nucleotides. This erroneous view was to delay significantly
the discovery of the structure of DNA.
1926 Samuel Ottmar Mast (1870 - 1947) publishes
the "tail contraction model" to explain the mechanism
of amoeboid movement. This study led to the formulation of many
useful concepts for understanding other protoplasmic movements,
such as cytokinesis.
De Kruif (1890 - 1971) trained as a bacteriologist
at the University of Michigan, and working on gas gangrene
during the first World War in France, publishes a book popularising
microbiology, Microbe Hunters, that had a considerable
influence on the interest for the field. It was also the
demonstration that there was a bridge between "The two
cultures" (CP Snow) that were supposed to separate Science
from Literature and Arts.
1926 Otto Loewi and Ernst Navratil (1902–1979)
identify Vagusstoff as acetylcholine.
1926 Based on his own scientific observations and on
the study of collected plants, Vavilov works
out a theory of the origin of cultivated plants, according to
which the cultivated flora appeared and was developed within
relatively few geographic centers located mostly in mountainous
regions. Vavilov later helped to establish seven
centers for collecting seeds in the world. Vavilov's
expeditions were targeted at verification of this theory. Later
on, numerous Soviet and foreign expeditions were organized according
to Vavilov's plans. Vavilov's
seed collection, an important genetic resource for the whole
world, is housed today in St. Petersburg, Russia, and is in danger
of degenerating. Subsequently, as a geneticist opposing the views
of Lyssenko (whom he had initially accepted
in his laboratory), Vavilov was harshly persecuted
during Stalin's dictature until his untimely death.
1926 Kenjiró Fujii (1866 -?) in a report
of the Japanese Association for the Advancement of Science describes
the coiled structure of the chromosomes in the nucleus. At certain
stages of the cell cycle, two filaments are seen to be coiled
around each other.
1926 Fritz Warmolt Went (1903
- 1990) extracts the substance present in coleoptile tips (protective
sheath enclosing the shoot tip and embryonic leaves of grasses)
by placing them on agar for an hour, then discarding the tips
and using the agar to produce growth in the decapitated coleoptiles.
This is the first growth factor to be isolated.
1926 Archibald Vivian Hill (Bristol,
1886 - 1977) uses a thermocouple to measure the heat produced
by stimulated nerve fibers. He shows that oxygen is consumed
in the recovery phase of muscle contraction and is not directly
required for contraction. Further work by Hill led
others to the conception of the phenomenon of cooperativity in
multisubunit proteins (Hill's coefficient),
after his studies of the binding of oxygen to hemoglobin.
1926 (Lodewijk) Louis Bolk (Overschie,
Netherlands, 1866 - Amsterdam, 1930) publishes La récapitulation
ontogénétique comme phénomène harmonique.
This work transmits the Haeckelian tradition of a kinship between
ontogeny and phylogeny.
1926 James Batcheller Sumner (Canton,
Massachusetts, 1887 - 1955) crystallizes the enzyme urease and
proves it to be a protein. This can be considered as one of the
last experimental demonstration of the continuity between physics
and biology putting together the world of "colloids" and
the world of "crystals".
1925 Gilbert Smithson Adair (1896
- 1979) finds in
a series of papers that the molecular mass of hemoglobin
is 67,000. He begins to describe the reversible binding of oxygen
to the protein (Adair's equation), in a way that was the basis
for the theory of allostery, forty years later.
1926 Barend Coenraad Petrus Jansen (1884 –
1962) and Willem Frederik
Donath (1889 – 1957) isolate crystalline aneurin (thiamin,
vitamin B1) from rice polishings, but their work does not identify
the sulfur atom in the molecule.
1927 Emil Bozler (1901- 1995) demonstrates
that the nerve net of cnidarians is made up of separate cells
connected by synaptic junctions. He also studies electrical aspects
of muscle contraction and the role of calcium and magnesium in
contraction and relaxation.
1927 Calvin Bridges (1889 - 1938), a geneticist, precursor
of the discoverers of homeogenes, discovers in Drosophila the
mutation bithoraxoïd (bxd) that modifies the aspect of the
first abdominal segment of the adult insect.
1927 Adolf Otto
Reinhold Windaus (Berlin, 1876 - 1959)
analyzes bile acids and identifies ergosterol as the parent
substance of vitamin D.
1927 Erik Anderson Stensiö (1891
- 1984) reconstructs a fossil Cephalapsid (an ostracoderm) and
suggests that it is a vertebrate prototype. He conceives the
lepidomorial theory as means of explaining the evolution of development
of the vertebrate dermal and oral skeleton. The lepidomorial
theory is a pattern-based theory that provides a homological
framework in comparing dental papillae and their products, and
it provides an explanatory mechanism for such relationships a
1927 George Ellett Coghill (Beaucoup,
Illinois, 1872 - Gainesville, Florida, 1941) begins to investigate
the innate behavioral patterns of lower vertebrates, including
salamanders as well as early embryonic somatic movements in birds
and in mammals other than man.
1927 In Pavlov's school, Anatolii
Georgievich Ivanov-Smolensky (1895
- Moscow 1982) publishes On
the methods of examining the conditioned food reflexes in children
and in mental disorders, a classic
in psycho-physiology, Brain 50: 280.
1927 Georgii Dmitriyevich Karpchenko (Velsk,
1899 -1941) obtains a tetraploid hybrid between
the radish Raphanus sativus,
and the cabbage, Brassica oleracea, thus creating the
new species "Raphanobrassica".
This is a first work in Soviet Union demonstrating that plants
can behave in a way purposedly oriented by Man.
1927 Artificial transmutation of genes is
reported by Lewis John Stadler (1896
- 1954) in maize and Hermann Joseph Muller (New
York, 1890 - 1967) in Drosophila by means of X-rays.
1927 Improving methods discovered earlier, Charles
Robert Harington (1897 - 1972) synthesizes thyroxine
at a high yield.
1927 Landsteiner discovers new blood groups, the M and
1927 Theophilus Shickel Painter (Salem, Viriginia,
1889 - Fort Stockton, Texas, 1969) finds a chromosome deficiency
in mice which, along with genetic evidence, provides the first
case of localizing a specific gene to a particular chromosome
in mammals. Painter is however better known
for his work on the genetics of Drosophila and its relation
to chromosome structure.
1927-1928 Philip Eggleton (?-?) and Grace
Palmer Eggleton (?-?), followed by Fiske and SubbaRow recognize
that phosphate is liberated from an organic compound during
rabbitt muscle contraction. They name "phosphagen" this
reservoir of energy. Phosphagen was later identified as phosphocreatine.
1927-1928 Hideyo Noguchi (1876
- Accra, Gold Coast, 1928) goes to Accra, Ghana, to work on yellow
fever, a disease which he wrongly believes is caused by a spirochete
and dies there from the disease he was keen to understand.
1927-1929 Corneille Jean
François Heymans (Ghent,
1892-1968) investigates the role of the carotid and aortic
reflexes in respiratory control.
1927-1930 The Institut
de Biologie Physico-Chimique is created in Paris,
funded by Edmond de Rothschild. Its first director is a physicist,
the discoverer of an experimental view of atoms, Jean Perrin.
This Institute aims at putting together Physics, Chemistry
and Biology, to follow the ideas of Claude
Bernard. The structure of this institute decided
of the plan for the conception of the French Centre National
de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS).
1928 Emil Heitz (1892 - 1965), fixing and staining
plant material, visualises, using the microscope, in moss nuclei
(the liverwort Pellia epiphylla (Jungermaniidae)) chromosomal
regions that do not undergo postmitotic decondensation, which
he names heterochromatin.
His contributions further extends to the study of chloroplasts
and polytene chromosomes.
1928 Franz Volhard (München, 1872 - Frankfurt
am Main, 1950) suggests that a substance in the kidney may be
responsible for some cases of hypertension.
1928 Josias Braun-Blanquet (1884 - 1980) publishes
an influential book on plant physiology, Pflanzensoziologie (English
1928 Fredrick Griffith (London,
?- 1941), trying to establish a vaccine against pneumonia, discovers
a "transforming principle" in pneumococci (Streptococcus
pneumoniae) that is capable of transforming nonvirulent
(rough) strains into virulent (smooth) strains.
von Euler-Chelpin (Augsburg, 1873 - Stockholm,
1964), already famous for his work on catalysis and fermentation,
prepares pure carotene and demonstrates its high vitamin
Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald (Berlin, 1902 - 1982)
passes his thesis dissertation "Das Rotliegende
der Weidener Bucht" (the permian redbeds in the
Weidener Bucht, an area located in the northeast of Bavaria)
and soon starts as a young scientist to work with the Netherlands
Geological Survey in Java, where important discoveries on
the origin of Man were to happen.
von Szent-Györgyi (Budapest, Hungary, 1893
- 1986) pioneering the study of biological oxidation mechanisms,
isolates from adrenals a substance that he later found to
be identical with vitamin C. He names the product, now known
as ascorbic acid, hexuronic acid. Ascorbic acid is not hexuronic
acid but a reduced derivative.
1928 Went develops a method of quantifying
the plant growth substance he has isolated two years earlier.
His results suggest that the curvatures of stems are proportional
to the amount of growth substance in the agar. This test is called
the "avena curvature test".
Fleming (Lochfield, Scotland, 1881 - London,
1955) while working on the influenza virus, discovers accidentally
the antibacterial action of a diffusible molecule produced
by a microscopic fungus, penicillin. Fifteen years were necessary
to put this discovery into medical practice.
1928 Wieland and Adolf
Otto Reinhold Windaus (Berlin, 1876 - 1959)
elucidate the structure of the cholesterol molecule.
1928-1933 Warburg establishes the iron-porphyrin
structure of the respiratory co-enzyme.
Piaget (Neuchâtel, Swizerland, 1896 -
Geneva, 1980), initially trained as a specialist of the molluscs
of the Geneva lake publishes La représentation
du monde chez l'enfant (The Child's Conception of the
World), a book that was to be very influential in the way
we perceive learning in humans.
1929 Karl Lohmann (1898-1978), following previous
work of Fiske and SubbaRow isolates
ATP from muscle extracts. Within two years he shows that it contains
two moles of phosphoric acid, one mole of adenine and one mole
1929 Trofim Denissovitch Lyssenko (1898-1976),
revives the old way of accelerating germination of plants by
submitting seeds to cold, advocated by Ivan Vladimirovitch Mitchourine (Verchina,
near Dolgoïe, gouv. of Riazan, 1855 —
Kozlov, today Mitchourinsk, 1935) (vernalisation). He incorrectly
interprets this true epigenetic phenomenon of adaptation as a
genetic phenomenon, and starts a crusade againts the "Mendelist-Morganist" genetics,
that was to culminate with Stalin's support with the emprisonment
and death of most of the genetics school in Soviet Union. He
further develops the Mitchourinian theory of the "mentor" (graft
or addition of strong plants to a bunch of weaker ones) to improve
the progeny by passing over the "good" properties of
the plants. It should be noticed that this fantastic view has
been held by influential thinkers such as Piaget,
in the domain of psychology, and is somewhat still influential
today in certain circles.
1929 Adolf Friedrich
Johann Butenandt (1903 - 1995) and Edward Adelbert Doisy (Hume,
Illinois, 1893 - 1986) isolate the first sex hormone, estrone,
1929 Walther Vogt (1888 - 1941) uses vital
dyes to construct fate maps of newt Triturus embryos.
Placing small vital dye marks on the surface of amphibian embryos
at various stages of development he analyzes the movements and
fates of various regions of the embryo.
1929 Sturtevant and Sterling
Emerson (1900-1988) show that much of the extraordinarily
complex genetics of the evening primrose (Oenothera)
can be interpreted as due to translocations of groups of genes,
following a model elaborated by John
Belling (Aldershot, UK 1866 - 1933) for the jimsonweed, Datura,
with the technique he had developed, the iron-acetocarmine
staining technique, which facilitated detailed study of chromosomal
structures. As a consequence of their work it becomes apparent
that many of the "mutations" that De Vries had
found in this organism were not genuine mutations but segregation
products from the complex translocations of chromosome arms
1929 William Bosworth Castle (1897 - 1990)
shows that the substance responsible for preventing pernicious
anemia derives from the combination of an "intrinsic factor" in
the gastric juice and an "extrinsic factor" in the
diet. This antianemic factor then stores in the liver. Extrinsic
factor was later proven to be vitamin B 12.
1929 Jacques Forestier (1890 - 1978) introduces
gold therapy in rheumatoid arthritis: L'aurothérapie
dans les rhumatismes chroniques.
1930 Einar Lundsgaard (1899 - 1968) proves
that muscles can contract in the presence of iodoacetate, which
prevents lactic acid formation.
van Niel (1897 - 1985) while studying anaerobic
bacteria that use hydrogen sulfide (H2S) instead of H2O in
photosynthesis, finds that the bacteria generate sulfur (S8)
as a byproduct. Following the earlier hypothesis of Thunberg,
this result leads him to propose that photosynthesis consists
of two separate reactions. The first is oxidation of a compound
with the general formula H2A (for example, H2S or H2O) with
the concomitant generation of protons (H+) and electrons
(e–). This reaction requires light to proceed. The
second reaction uses the protons and electrons generated
by the first reaction to reduce CO2 and produce carbohydrates
and water. This provides a rationale for the mechanism of
Theiler (Pretoria, 1899 - 1972), by demonstrating
that mice were susceptible to the intracerebral inoculation
of the yellow fever agent, establishes the agent of yellow
fever as a virus contrary to the opinion generally held around
him (in particular by his former colleague, Hideyo
1930 Stadler devises and perfects methods for
determining spontaneous mutations rates in maize, finding that
different genes mutate at widely different rates.
1930 Gavin Rylands De Beer (London,
1899 - Alfriston, Sussex, 1972) publishes Embryology and
evolution where he analyzes the relationships between ontogeny
1930 Sewall Wright (1889 - 1988), best known
for his "shifting balance theory", studies the mathematics
of evolutionary changes in living organisms populations.
1930 Publication of Ronald Aylmer Fisher's
(London, 1890 - Adelaide, Australia, 1962) The Genetical
Theory of Natural Selection. While being extremely influential
in the domain of statistics (and an excellent mathematician in
the domain), Fisher was to expose also a very
dark side, because of his extremely biased emphasis on eugenics
(with particularly horrible consequences during this period of
the XXth century).
Howard Northrop (1891 - 1987) crystallizes pepsin
and trypsin and proves that they are proteins.
1930-1935 John Tileston Edsall (Philadelphia,
1902 - 2002) and Alexandeer von Muralt (?-?)
isolate myosin from muscle. Later, Edsall had
a strong influence on the development of biochemistry, and was
an important editor of The Journal of Biological Chemistry.
1931 Vladimir A Engelhardt (1894 - 1984) discovers
that phosphorylation of ATP is coupled to respiration, a process
now known as "oxidative phosphorylation".
1931 Warren Lewis and his wife Margaret characterize
the process of entry of compounds and particles in cells, known
as pinocytosis (from
the Greek "peinw" I drink).
1931 Harriett B Creighton (1909 - 2004) and Barbara
McClintock (1902 - 1992) demonstrate both cytological
chromatid exchange and exchange of genetic loci as a result
of the same meiotic event, a cytological proof for crossing-over
in maize. A similar demonstration is made by Curt
Stern (Hamburg, 1902 - 1981) in Drosophila.
Gödel (Brünn, 1906 - Princeton, 1978)
establishes the principle of indecidability in arithmetics.
This remarkable work demonstrates that, even in the science
of whole numbers (integers) mathematics is not a tautology.
For this work Gödel uses the concept of coding, distinguishing
between the concept and its label (as a word in a given language,
or, as any type of string of symbols). This is at the
root of the powerful alphabetic metaphor that underlies
molecular biology and the science of genetics of genomes.
1931 Carl Linus
Pauling (1901 - 1994) publishes The Nature
of the Chemical Bond, which describes the basis for
understanding how macromolecules can be stable at ordinary
1931 Wright presents the first unified picture
of evolution in terms of Mendelism illustrating the relations
between selection pressure, mutation rates, inbreeding, isolation
and the like.
1931 Warder Clyde Allee (1885 - 1955), a Chicago
ecologist, publishes his book, Animal Aggregations: A Study
in General Sociology. At the time, following the classification
of Sciences according to Auguste
Comte, many thought that research on animal communities
would be relevant to human sociology. This was also an important
step in the discussion of commensalism, symbiosis, parasitism
and the like. Allee introduces the subject of
cooperation in a 'nominalist' way, devoid of moral content, or
substantial premisses about the nature of society. According
to him, cooperation starts as a mere 'aggregation' of individuals,
of protozoa for instance, with the result of enjoying better
chances of survival for each. Contrary to Allee,
his Chicago colleagues, notably his former teacher Charles M Child (1869
- 1954), held a view in which cooperation was the result of competition,
which in turn was constrained by patterns of dominance. Dominance
itself was rooted in sexual dominance of the male over the females.
Many debates and theory in game theory and in the study of propagation
of behaviour in communities rest on work such as that one. It
is not indifferent that this debate started in the early thirties,
at a time when the idea of struggle for life, competition and
degeneracy was beginning to spread throughout the world, culminating
in the Nazist view of mankind.
1931 Louis SB Leakey (1903
- 1972) in The Stone Age Cultures of Kenya Colony, begins
to dig for decades in the Olduvai Gorge in East Africa. His first
major discovery was the jaw of a pre human creature called Proconsul (1948)
1931 At the Karolinska Institute Carl Naeslund (Uppsala
?-?) tries to persuade medical doctors and dentists of the importance
of cleaning teeth, and studies the consequences of using a variety
of toothpastes. This is an important step in the improvement
of world-wide hygiene.
1931 Fritz Kögl (?-?), AJ Hagen-Smit (?-?)
and Hanni Erxleben (?-?) in Holland isolate
from human urine and characterize chemically the compound discovered
by Fritz Went in 1926 as the compound auxentriolic
acid (auxin A) and name it Auxin (after the greek word auxein, "increase",
"enhance", "grow"). Independently, Kenneth Vivian Thimann (Ashford,
England, 1904 - Haverford, Pennsylvania, 1997) purify the substance.
Later Kögl isolates other compounds from
urine which were similar in structure and function to auxin A,
one of which was indole-3 acetic acid (IAA). In 1954 a committee
of plant physiologists was set up to characterize the group auxins.
Compounds are generally considered auxins if they are synthesized
by the plant and are substances which share similar activity
to IAA (the first auxin to be isolated from plants).
Needham (London, 1900 - 1995), best known for
his monumental Science and Civilisation in China (Cambridge
1954, seventeen large volumes published, and still being
continued), publishes his three-volume Chemical Embryology with
an extensive introduction about the history of embryology
- his first contribution to the history of science.
1931 Antonio Caetano de Abreu Freire Egas
Moniz (Avanca, Portugal, 1874 - 1955) publishes
his Diagnostic des tumeurs cérébrales et épreuve
de l'encéphalographie artérielle (Diagnostics
of cerebral tumours and application of arterial encephalography),
in Paris. He later develops brain frontal resection in the
treatment of certain psychiatric diseases. This "lobotomy" becomes
quite fashionable in the world at a time when the idea of "degeneracy"
of individuals and races begins to catch importance.
1931 On the basis of radioactivity and geological
data, the age of the Earth is shown to be at least two billion
Teilhard de Chardin (Sarcenat, 1881 - New York, 1955)
joins the group sponsored by André Citroën La
croisière jaune, to explore the Silk Road from
the Western World to China and discover prehistorical remains
of humans in China.
1931-1933 Analyzing Tsvett's
publication on chromotography, the Austrian biochemist Richard
Kuhn (Vienna, Österreich, 1900 - 1967) asks
his student Edgar Lederer (1908 - 1988) to adapt
the method and refine it for the separation of carotenoids. He
discovers a third carotene isomer which is called g-carotene. Lederer's
adaptation of Tsvett's first achievement is
particularly successful and they manage to isolate and purify
a large number of carotenoids, amongst which astaxanthin (astakoV,
lobster in Greek), the pigment that makes lobsters red when they
1932 Further working on the role of phosphorylation
of small molecules in the management of energy, Lohmann discovers
the ATP-phosphocreatine phosphate transfer reaction.
1932 Mietsche (?-?) and Klarer (?-?)
, from I. G. Farben Industrie, in Germany, synthesize sulfamido-chrysoïdine,
a product that was to be the source of the first antibiotics.
1932 Warburg and Walter Christian (?-?)
isolate a yellow conjugated flavoprotein from yeast: the "yellow
enzyme" of respiration.
Dobzhansky (Nemirov, Russia, 1900 - 1975), Theophilus
Painter, and Hermann Muller show
that while the linear order of genes is the same for genetic
and cytological maps, physical distances and crossover map
distances do not coincide. Dobzhansky is
best known for his aphorism: "Nothing in biology
makes sense except in the light of evolution." Muller shows that without sex mutations will accumulate until they
drive extinction (Muller's ratchet).
1932 Haldane publishes his influential book, The
Causes of Evolution and an essay on The Origin of
Life, where he assumes a heterotroph origin of living
1932 Further developing his statistical studies
of populations, Wright stresses the importance
of "genetic drift"
due to chance in small populations.
1932 Richard Benedikt Goldschmidt (1878 – 1958)
studies adaptation in geographical races of the Gypsy moth (Lymantria
dispar). With another species, the Peppered Moth (Biston
discusses that in industrial areas, melanic forms thrive, while
otherwise the moth is white, freckled with black spots. This
work was later disputed by special interests groups, but its
validity has been established again in 2012. Cook, L. M., B.
S. Grant, I. J. Saccheri and J. Mallet. 2012. Selective bird
predation on the peppered moth: the last experiment of Michael
1932 The physiologist Albrecht Bethe (1872
- 1954) introduces the concept of ectohormones, demonstrated
in insects, where they may function in trail making, sex attraction,
development control, and the like. These substances are known
as pheromones. An organism secretes these substances out of the
body, where they affect the physiology or behavior of another
individual of the same species.
1932 A Danish scientific expedition discovers
ichthyostegid fossils in Greenland. These are the oldest known
fossils that can be classified as amphibians.
1932 George Edward Lewis (?-?)
finds the first Ramapithecus brevirostris (punjabicus),
the earliest known hominid fossil, in the Siwalik Hills of India.
1932 The physicist Niels
Bohr (Copenhagen, 1885 - Copenhagen, 1962) begins
to be interested in biology and gives a lecture on "Light
and Life" at the International Congress of Light
Therapy, where he suggests that similar complementarities
as those between wave and particle in atom physics might
exist in living organisms and may explain the nature of life.
While of a completely different nature, this idea of "complementarity" was
to have a very important role in the discovery of DNA's structure.
The paper is published in 1933: Light and Life, Nature 131:
1933 Max Knoll (Wiesbaden, 1897 - 1969) and Ernst August
Friedrich Ruska (Heidelberg,
Germany, 1906 - Berlin, 1988) build the first electron microscope,
that extends considerably the range of observation of biological
1933 Nicolai Vladimirovitch Timofeeff-Ressovsky (Moscow,
1900 - 1981) measures the viability of strains of Drosophila
funebris of different geographical origin. Together with Muller,
who just came from America to Berlin, they try to prove that
not only X-rays but also ultraviolet light can induce mutations.
Based on their data the question emerges: "how can the physical
nature of light damage chromosomes and genes?"
In this context, the physicist and student of Niels Bohr, Max
Delbrück (Berlin, 1906 - 1981), enters genetics
in Timofeeff-Ressovsky's Institute
in Berlin (this Institut is now named after his name: the "Max
1933 Etienne Camille André (?-?) demonstrates
that soap hydrolysis plays a negative role on teeth and gingivae.
This starts research to modify the composition of toothpaste
and its action on the microbial flora in the mouth, creating
a new domain of microbiology.
1933 Hans Adolf Krebs (Hildesheim,
Germany, 1900 - 1981) and Kurt Henseleit (1907
- 1973) establish the first elements of what is now known as
the "urea cycle" where synthesis and degradation of
the guanidinium, nitrogen-rich group of arginine is explained.
1933 Paul Runar Collander (Finland,
1894 - 1973) and H Bärlund (?-?) make quantitative
measurements of cell membrane permeability chemically the amount
of a given substance that appeared in the cell sap of characean
cells a certain time after the cells were placed in a given concentration
of the substance to nonelectrolytes of varying molecular size
and lipid solubility. Their results contributes enormously to
our understanding of membrane structure.
Wald (New York, 1906 - 1997) discovers vitamin
A in the retina.
1933 H Hashimoto (?-?) describes the chromosomal
control of sex determination in the silkworm, Bombyx mori (56
chromosomes) and shows that chromosome W is the sex determining
chromosome in the insect.
1933 Gustav Georg Embden (1874
- 1933) and Otto
Meyerhof (Hannover, 1884 - 1951) establish the nature
of crucial intermediates in the chemical pathway of glycolysis
and fermentation. The combination of the work of these authors
with that of Lohmann establishes associations
between the uptake of phosphate during the breakdown of carbohydrates
to lactic acid and the splitting of ATP. They find that ATP is
resynthesized in subsequent reactions. This is the first suggestion
that the lactic acid cycle participates in the formation of ATP.
Despite his work of immense interest Meyerhof had
subsequently to leave Nazi Germany, and from 1938 to 1940 he
was Director of Research at the Institut
de Biologie Physico-Chimique in Paris. In 1940,
when the Germans invaded France he had to leave Paris for Toulouse,
then for Philadelphia in the United States.
1933 Harry Goldblatt (1891 - 1977) reports
that human semen and seminal vesicles contain a factor that
reduces blood pressure and regulates smooth muscle activity.
This Is the first report that identifies the activity of prostaglandins
and prelude to the discovery of renin.
1933 Johannes Friedrich
Karl Holtfreter (1901 - 1992) working
with amphibian embryos and using a sandwich assay, produces
in urodele exogastrulae in which neural tissue does not form,
an important tool for understanding embryonic induction.
1933 Heitz and Bauer discover
that the giant salivary gland chromosomes of the Diptera are
polytene, which allows the banding patterns to be mapped in chromosomes.
This facilitates extensive studies on precise gene localization
and chromosome structure iscovered that the giant chromosomes
1933-1935 Spemann, Joseph
Needham (London, 1900 - 1995), Conrad Hal Waddington (1905
- 1975), and others shows that cell-free extracts from the
organizer region retains powers of evocation. Chemical studies
led to the belief that the evocator was probably a sterol.
1933 Rebecca Craighill Lancefield (1895
- 1981) describes a method of producing streptococcal antigens
and sera for use in precipitin tests and suggests that this approach
can be used epidemiologically to identify the probable origin
of a given strain.
1934 Jacques Duclaux publishes L'analyse
chimique des fonctions vitales, a book still full of the
vitalism of colloid chemistry.
1934 Ladislaus Laszlo Marton (1901
- 1979) publishes La microscopie électronique des
objects biologiques (Electron microscopy of biological objects)
in which he is the first to examine biological specimens with
microscope, which achieves magnifications of 200-300,000
1934 Philippe L'Héritier (1906 - 1990)
Teissier (1900 - 1972), with their the "population
cage", demonstrate that a deleterious gene disappears from
populations of Drosophila melanogaster maintained in
population cages for many generations, providing a first example
of natural selection in a laboratory setting.
1934 Robert Russell Bensley (1867–1956)
and Normand Louis Hoerr (1902
- 1958) develop techniques to disassemble cells and isolate cellular
components. They isolate and analyze mitochondria.
1934 William A DeMonbreun (?-?) describes
the dimorphic nature of Histoplasma capsulatum after
being surprised by the growth of a mold
from patient tissues displaying an infection caused by a yeast.
He later finds that dogs are natural hosts of this dimorphic
fungus. The Dog as a Natural Host of Histoplasma
Case of Histoplasmosis in This Animal , Am.
J. Trop. Med. 19:
1934 von Euler notes that Goldblatt has
just reported that human semen contains a factor that reduces
blood pressure and regulates smooth muscle. von Euler trained
with Dale in England had, just a few years earlier,
isolated the bioactive peptide compound P. During systematic
studies, von Euler find that extracts of prostate
and vesicular glands contain potent blood-pressure-lowering factors
from sheep and man that stimulated smooth muscles and were different
from compound P. Importantly, von Euler discovers
that the activities are of lipidic character and coins the term
1934 Axel Hugo Theodor Theorell (Linköping,
Sweden, 1903 - 1982) demonstrates by using electrophoresis that
the lipid-soluble activity (prostaglandins) behave as an acid.
Dam (Copenhagen, 1895 - Copenhagen, 1976) and Edward Adelbert Doisy (Hume,
Illinois, 1893 - 1986) isolate and identifie vitamin K.
1935 Arthur G Tansley (1871 - 1955) coins
the word "ecosystem"
to define a unit that covers all organisms of a given area as
well as their relationship to the inorganic environment. .
1935 Jakub Oskarovich Parnas (Mokriany,
then Austro-Hungarian Empire, 1884 - murdered during stalinian
purges, 1949) describes for the first time the reactions of glycogen
phosphorylation and phosphorylation in glycolysis (at the Institute
of Medical Chemistry).
1935 On the initiative
of Ludwik Rajchman (1881 - 1965),
a world conference on nutrition is convened that establishes
for the first time in history a minimal nutritional level necessary
for maintaining health in the individual.
1935 Sumner shows
experimentally the selective value of protective coloration in
1935 Sven Otto Hörstadius (1898 - 1996)
shows the existence of a double gradient of "animalization" and "vegetalization"
in the echinoderm egg.
1935 The work of Gerhard Johannes
Paul Domagk (Lagow, Germany, 1895 - 1964)
establishes the positive role of sulfamido-chrysoïdine
in animal and human streptococcus infections. One of the first
patients to be treated with Protonsil was Domagk’s daughter
who had a streptococcal infection that was unresponsive to
other treatments. When she was near death, she was injected
with large quantities of Protonsil and she made a dramatic
1935 Jacques Trefouël (Le
Raincy, France, 1897 - Paris, 1977), Federico
Nitti (Ischia, Italia, 1903 - 1947) and Daniel
Bovet (Genève, 1907 - Roma, 1992), working in
the laboratory of Ernest François Fourneau (Biarritz,
1872 - Paris, 1949), at the Institut Pasteur, conceptualize that
in the complex molecule of sulfamido-chrysoïdine with its
azoic double bond, only paraminobenzo-sulfonamide (paraminophenylsulfamide)
is the active principle. This triggers industrial synthesis of
sulfamides and their use as antibacterial agents. The sulfamides
Septoplix, Neo-coccyl, Lysococcine, initially experimented in
Germany (Prontosil), then in France (Rubiazol) are found highly
efficient against meningitis caused by streptococci or pneumococci
as well as in the case of blennorragy and colibacillosis, etc.
1935 Percy W Zimmerman (?-?) and Frank
Wilcoxon (1882 - 1965) discover several chemical growth
substances which cause initiation of roots and other responses
in plants. Wilcoxon is well known for his contributions to
1935 Wendell Meredith Stanley (Ridgeville,
Indiana, 1904 - 1971) succeeds in crystallizing tobacco mosaic
virus, using the standard techniques for purification of proteins
(isoelectric precipitation and salting out with ammonium sulfate)
and shows it remains infectious. That a virus could be crystallized
caused sensation as it was both a biological and a philosophical
breakthrough. However, Stanley does not recognize
that the infectious material is nucleic acid and not protein.
The fact that he was nevertheless awarded a Nobel Prize (in 1946)
shows how strong was the fact that the role of DNA was overlooked
for a long time.
Karrer (Moscow, 1889 - Zürich, 1971) and Richard
Kuhn (Vienna, 1900 - 1967) identify lactoflavin
(riboflavin, or vitamin B2) as the prosthetic group of Warburg and Walter
Christian's yellow enzyme.
1935 Szent-Györgyi establishes the involvement
of dicarboxylic acids in respiration.
Ephrussi (1901 - 1979) comes to the California
Technology to work on developmental aspects of genetics did pioneer
work on Drosophila eye transplants in 1934 to study
genetics with George Wells Beadle (Wahoo,
Nebraska, 1903 - 1989), who visited Paris for six months in 1935
to work with him at the Institut
de Biologie physico-chimique. Together they began the study
of the development of eye pigment in Drosophila, which
was the first step of the "one gene - one enzyme" hypothesis.
1935 Robert Runnels Williams (Nellore,
India, 1886 - 1965) establishes a correct formula for the structure
of vitamin B1 it was named thiamine.
1935 Wald suggests that vitamin A is a precursor
of visual purple.
1935 Curtis E Meyer (?-?) and William
Cumming Rose (1887 – 1985) discover threonine,
the last essential amino-acid to have been recognized.
1935 Hugh Davson (1909 - 1996) and James Frederic Danielli (1911
- 1984) proposes a "protein-lipid sandwich"
model for the structure of cell membranes.
1935 Rudolf Schoenheimer (Berlin, 1898 - committed
suicide, 1941) and David
Rittenberg (1906 - 1970) first uses isotopes (nitrogen-15
and deuterium) as tracers in the study of intermediate metabolism
of carbohydrates and lipids. Schoenheimer had
to emigrate to the USA because of the Nazi domination in Germany,
1935 Delbrück and Timofeeff-Ressovsky,
together with the physicist Karl G Zimmer (1911
- 1988) publish in an article
"Über die Natur der Genmutation and der Genstruktur"
(On the nature of gene-mutation and gene-structure), their quantum
mechanics-oriented results on the stability of genes. Their "Theory
of hitting probabilities"
shows that the amount of induced mutations must be directly proportional
to the applied doses of rays. This allows them to estimate the
size of genes, that are supposed to encompass not much more than
about 1000 atoms. This, even though it was an underestimation,
was a pretty good approximation of real gene sizes. formulates
a "target theory" of gene mutation which says that
a mutation can be induces if a single electron is detaches by
high energy radiation.
1935-1936 Edward Calvin Kendall (South
Norwalk, Connecticut, 1886 - 1972), Philip
Showalter Hench (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1896
- 1965) and, independently, Tadeusz
Reichstein (Wloclawek, Poland, 1897 - Basel, Swizerland,
1996) discover cortisone. Kendall had participated
in the discovery of thyroxin, the active principle of the thyroid
gland, but he is also known for his crystallization of glutathione.
1935-1936 Warburg and von Euler isolate
pyrimidine nucleotides and determine their structure and action.
1935-1936 Kurt G Stern (? - ?) observes spectral
shifts in catalase as the reaction it catalyzes proceeds, thus
demonstrating spectroscopically the existence of an intermediate
enzyme-substrate complex for the enzyme catalase, confirming
the Michaelis-Menten hypothesis.
1936-1937 John Desmond
Bernal (Nenagh, Ireland, 1901 - London, 1971)
with Isadore Fankuchen (1904 - 1964) obtains
X-ray pictures from the crystals of the 280 nm tobacco mosaic
virus particles showing that the "individual rods of
tobacco mosaic virus have a regular inner structure of such
a nature that each rod could be considered to be a crystal".
This was perhaps the first hint of the idea of "aperiodic
crystal" that was so successful in the What is life? of Schrödinger later. Bernal demonstrates
that isolated preparations of tobacco mosaic virus contain
phosphorus as a component of a phospho-ribonucleic acid.
They also isolate ribonucleic acids. This challenges the
claim by Stanley that the Tobacco Mosaic
Virus is composed only of protein
1936 Harland Goff Wood (Delavan,
Minnesota, 1907 - 1991) and Chester Hamlin Werkman (Fort
Wayne, Indiana, 1893 - Ames, Iowa, 1962) discover that plant
cells kept in the dark are able to build up larger organic molecules
from carbon dioxide. They also show that CO2 is consumed
by Propionibacterium arabinosum during the fermentation
of glycerol. This is the first report of carbon dioxide fixation
by a heterotrophic bacterium.
1936 David Keilin (Moscow, 1887 - Cambridge,
1963) parasitologist and entomologist, isolates cytochrome c
(about 80% pure), that he had identified in 1925, and reconstitutes
electron transport in particulate heart preparations.
Wrinch (Rosario, Argentina, 1895 - 1972) proposes
a theory of heredity based on the chaining of the amino-acid
residues of proteins, linked by peptide bonds and folded
into a cyclic structure. She embarks in model building to
substantiate her "cyclol" theory.
1936 John Zachary Young (1907 - 1997) discovers
that the squid Loligo contains some enormous nerve cells,
including an axon up to 1 mm in diameter and 10 cm long. This
allowed scientists to performed studies on the nervous system
that, until them, had not been possible.
1936 Louis Rapkine (Tchichenitch,
Russia, 1904 - Paris, 1948), who is working at the Institut
de Biologie Physico-chimique in Paris on sulfhydryl- groups, creates
the Comité français pour l'accueil et l'organisation
du travail des savants étrangers to help jewish and
antifascist scientists to escape from the Nazis and the fascists.
1936 Moniz publishes his Tentatives opératoires
dans le traitement de certaines psychoses (Tentative methods
in the treatment of certain psychoses) in Paris, followed by La
leucotomie préfrontale. A further"demonstration" of
the efficacy of lobotomy, Traitement chirurgical de certaines
psychoses (Prefrontal leucotomy. Surgical treatment of
certain psychoses) is publihed in Torino one year later. This
way to consider psychoses is well in line with the general
trend of medicine and eugenic practices that are spreading
during this dark period of human history.
1936 Needham publishes Order and life,
where among other interesting ideas he proposes that the cytoskeleton
is a “contractile net”.
Church (Washington, DC, 1903 - Hudson, Ohio,
1995) publishes a landmark paper on lambda
calculus that shows the existence of an "undecidable
in the investigation of recursivity, a property that was later
to be found in the way heredity is organised in living systems.
1936 Robert Williams and Kline synthesizes
Demerec (1895 - 1966) and Margaret E
point out the correspondence between giant salivary gland
chromosome bands and gene maps. Demerec begins
to think about a nomenclature for the description of genes.
1936 Publication of Dobzhansky's Genetics
and the Origin of Species.
1936 George S Avery (?-?) and Paul
(?-?) study the effects of auxins in plant metabolism (publication
of Growth hormones in plants).
1936 Alexander Oparin publishes The Origins
of Life on Earth, in which he describes hypothetical conditions
which would have been necessary for life to first come into
existence on early Earth. Life must have come from simple organic
molecules present in the early earth's atmosphere. This includes
an atmosphere of methane, ammonia, and other gases, much volcanic
activity, lightening, and warm soil and water temperatures.
This hypothesis was later tested by an experiment done by Stanley
Miller with Harold Urey in 1953.
Turing (London, 1912 - Wilmslow, Cheshire, 1954)
invents his Universal Machine, meant to illustrate the concept
of algorithm in concrete uneversal terms. This approach is
fundamental in understanding emergent properties of whole
numbers, as well as in the concrete construction of computers.
1937 Lohmann and P Schuster isolate
the prosthetic group from co-carboxylase and shows that it is
the diphosphate of thiamin (vitamin B1).
1937 Hans Adolf Krebs (1900
- 1981) and WA Johnson (?-?) postulate the mechanism
of what is now known as the Krebs cycle, under the name citric
acid cycle. Proper names for the cyclic oxidation of substrates
in the mitochondria matrix are tricarboxylic acid cycle or citric
Ferdinand Herzfeld (Wien, 1892 - Washington,
1978) who came to America in 1926, publishes articles on
a tentative theory of photosynthesis (with J. Franck: An
attempted theory of photosynthesis. J. Chem. Phys. 5:237-251).
1937 Thimann suggests that a given concentration
of auxin might produce inhibitory effects in one tissue and stimulation
in another, different tissues being characterizes by a series
of overlapping optimal concentration curves.
1937 Albert Francis Blakeslee (Geneseo,
New York, 1874 - 1954) and Amos G Avery (?-?)
use colchicine to produce artificial polyploidy in plant cells.
1937 Marton publishes the first electron micrographs
1937 Edouard Chatton (1883 - 1947), who mostly
worked on protozoa, summarises his past work and separates living
organisms into eucaryotes (those with a well formed
nucleus; eu: good, karuon,
kernel, nucleus) and procaryotes (those with no nucleus
and the genetic material directly in the cytoplasm of the cell; pro:
preceding, or primitive) in a description of the food chain.
The spelling used most frequently in English ("karyote")
appeared later on. "Les protistologues s'accordent,
aujourd'hui, à considérer les Flagellés
autotrophes comme les plus primitifs des Protozoaires à noyau
vrai, des Eucaryotes (ensemble qui embrasse aussi les Végétaux
et les Métazoaires), parce qu'ils sont les seuls pouvoir
faire la synthèse totale de leur protoplasme à partir
du milieu minéral. Les organismes hétérotrophes
sont donc subordonnés à leur existence, ainsi qu'à celle
des Procaryotes chimiotrophes et autotrophes (Bactéries
nitrifiantes et sulfureuses, Cyanophycées)." Apparently,
he was using the terms well before that time (as
early as 1925) but did not care to emphasize the importance
of the associated concept.
1937 Dobzhansky links evolution and genetic
mutations in Genetics and the Origin of Species.
1937 Collander finds that, in general, the
more lipophilic a substance is, the greater is its ability to
permeate the membrane. However some small hydrophilic molecules,
like water also permeate quickly. Collander concludes
that while the membrane is made primarily of lipid, it is really
a mosaic, and must contain pores to account for the high permeability
of some small polar molecules.
1937 René Leriche (Roanne, 1879 - 1955),
basing his work on experiments of trauma during the first World
War, publishes La chirurgie de la douleur, a book on
the importance of physical pain. This work was translated in
many languages and makes the basis of new surgical techniques.
1937 Arne Wilhelm
Kaurin Tiselius (Stockholm,
1902 - 1971) develops the technique of electrophoresis.
1937 George William Marshall Findlay (1893
- 1952) and MacCullum discover interferon.
1937 Tracy Morton Sonneborn (Baltimore,
Maryland, 1905 - Bloomington, Indiana, 1981) lectures at Goucher
College on the existence of different mating types in Paramecium.
1937 Frederick Charles Bawden (1908 - 1972)
establishes that the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) contains RNA.
1937-1938 Warburg shows
how formation of ATP is couples to the dehydrogenation of glyceraldehyde
1937-1939 Delbrück moves to Morgan's
laboratory at Caltech where he gets frustrated by the complex
esoteric terminology of Drosophila genetics. With Emory
L Ellis (?-?) he learns about bacteriophages and some
fascinating techniques of microbiology. The ease in which one
could make viruses visible on a bacterial lawn made experiments
possible with an object (phage T4) that for Delbrück was
the "atom of biology". With Ellis he
establishes the concept of the one-step viral growth cycle for
a bacteriophage active against E. coli, published as The
growth of bacteriophage. J.Gen.Physiol. 22: 365-384.
1937-1939 Carl Ferdinand Cori (Prague,
1896 - 1984) and Gerty Theresa Radnitz-Cori (Prague,
1896 - 1957) demonstrate the reversible action of glycogen phosphorylase.
1937-1941 Herman Moritz Kalckar (Copenhagen,
1908 - Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1991), and Vladimir
Aleksandrovitch Belitser (Riazan 1906
- 1988) and Elena T
independently carry out the first quantitative studies of oxidative
phosphorylation. Kalckar demonstrates that cell-free
extracts of kidney cortex catalyze oxidative phosphorylation
- that is, the formation of ATP in reactions strictly dependent
on the reduction of oxygen and independent of glycolysis.
1938 Johannes van Overbeek (?-?) reports that
certain nongeotropic mutants in maize do not show the usual inequality
of auxin distribution.
1938 Michaelis and MP Schubert (?-?)
propose that free radicals are involved in biochemical reactions: The
theory of two-step oxidation involving free radicals. Chem.
Rev. 1938, 22, 437-470.
1938 Burrhus Frederick Skinner (Susquehanna,
Pennsylvania, 1904 - 1990) invents the "Skinner
box", and uses it to investigate operant conditioning
in rats (analysis of the couple stimulus / response). With a
purely mechanistic view of the mind, he creates a school of psychology
known as Behaviorism.
1938 Jean Louis
A Brachet (Etterbeek, Belgique, 1909 -
1998) shows that ribonucleic acids are accumulates in regions
of high morphogenetic activity.
1938 Alfred Fessard (1900 - 1982), Wilhelm
Feldberg (1900 - 1993), and David Nachmansohn (1899
- 1983) establish that the transmission at the electromotor
synapse of the electric eel, Torpedo marmorata, is
cholinergic and results in the electric discharge of the eel.
1938 Albert Hofmann (Baden, Switzerland, 1906
- 2008) synthesizes the ergotamine molecule, lysergic acid 25
1938 Together with Irving
Langmuir (New York, 1881 - 1957), Winch perfects
the cage struture, cyclol theory of proteins up to a point
where she tries to reconcile her hypothesis with X-ray data
on insulin. The theory is rapidly discredited, in particular
1938 Field tests of Max Theiler’s
vaccine against yellow fever prove successful. The vaccine is
based on a mouse passaged virus.
Moewus (1908 - 1959) develops at the MPImF in
Heidelberg his work on the alga Chlamydomonas eugametos, developing
an elaborate biochemical and genetic interpretation demonstrating
that mutants could be isolated and characterized, as well
as suggesting cytoplasmic heredity. This work was rapidly
clouded by irreproducibility. Speaking of these faked results Haldane reports: " a
chap in Berlin who counted different types of algae (or so
he said), got such a magnificent agreement between observed
and theoretical results, that if every member of the human
race had repeated his work once a month for 1012 years,
they might expect as good a fit on one occasion (though not
with great confidence). So
Moewus certainly hadn't done any second order faking. " This
work is a famous illustration of an unfortunate practice
that plagues studies in biology, especially through publications
of faked work in famous journals. Taking on Moewus in 1938, Kuhn was
one of the earliest scientists to anticipate the future of
molecular genetics. The result was a great personal embarrassment
1938 Robert (Robin) Hill (Leamington
Spa, Warwickshire, 1899 - 1991) finds that cell-free suspensions
of chloroplasts evolve oxygen when illuminated in the presence
of ferric salts.
1938 Alexander Evseevich Braunstein (Kharkov,
1902 - Moscow, 1986) and MG Kritzman (?-?),
in Soviet Union, discover a new type of reversible enzyme-catalyzed
reaction while studying glutamic acid metabolism and transamination
1938 William Thomas Astbury (Stoke-on-Trent,
1898 - Leeds, 1961) and FO Bell (?-?) use X-ray
diffraction on fibers to analyze the structure of DNA.
1938 Schoenheimer applies radioactive tracers
to the study of the biosynthesis of cell structures and concludes
that the body is in a state of dynamic equilibrium.
1939 A Coelacanth is caught at the mouth of
the Chalumna River, this specimen of a Latimeria,
a living crossopterygian fish, is caught off the coast of South
Africa. The order Crossopterygii was believed to have died out
in the Cretaceous period after it gave rise to the amphibian
1939 Gregory Goodwin Pincus (Woodbine,
New Jersey, 1903 - 1967) succeeds in inducing parthenogenesis
in a mammalian egg. He is best known for the invention of the
1939 Sven Otto Hörstadius (1898
- 1996) studies the sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus and
differentiates eggs into the categories "regulative" and "mosaic" depending
on their pattern of development.
1939 Publication of Everett Ernest Just's
(Charleston, South Carolina, 1883 - Washington, DC, 1941) The
Biology of the Cell Surface.
1939 Julian Huxley (London, 1887 - London,
1975) introduces the concept of cline in evolutionary
Wyman Jr (West Newton, Massachusetts, 1901-1995)
publishes An Analysis of the Titration Data of Oxyhemoglobin
of the Horse by a Thermal Method, that was to be at
the basis of the theory of allostery conceived by Jacques
Monod and published in 1965 together with Wyman and Changeux.
1939 Samuel Ruben (San Francisco, California,
1913 - died from a laboratory accident, 1943), William
Zev Hassid (Jaffa, Palestine, 1899 - 1974) and Martin David Kamen (Toronto,
1913 - 2002) first apply radioactive tracers (carbon-11, the
only radioactive tracer available at the time) to the study of
photosynthesis. Kamen was later the co-discoverer
of the radioactive isotope carbon-14. Kamen suffered
shamefully during the anti-Communist witchhunts of the 1940s
and 1950s. He recorded his despair in his autobiography, Radiant
Science, Dark Politics (1985). His troubles began during
the wartime Manhattan atomic bomb project, when in 1943 he was
assigned to research at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee.
Dubos (Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt, 1901 - New
York, 1982) discovers that soil bacteria produce chemicals toxic
to microbes, Studies on a bactericidal agent extracted from
a soil Bacillus J. Exp. Med., 70: 1-17. This reports the
discovery of gramicidin and tyrocidin, produced by Bacillus
brevis. With Rollin Hotchkiss they file
the first patent ever protecting the discovery of an antibiotic.
It must be noted that this was the first record of antibiotics
produced by Bacilli, and that, for
reasons that are not totally clear the discovery was not placed
in the limelight. When the genome
sequence of Bacillus subtilis was uncovered in 1997,
it came out as a surprise that the organism was producing several
antibiotics: this would not have been the case if Dubos contribution
had received the recognition it deserved.
1939 G Borgström (? - ?) finds that shoots
exposed to ethylene exhibited positive geotropism associates
with the predicted auxin distribution. Ethylene must in some
way influence the transverse movement of auxin.
Howard Northrop (New York, 1891 - 1987) publishes Crystalline
1939 Russel E Marker (1902 - 1994) discovers
how to transform diosgenin from wild yams into progesterone,
synthesizing progesterone in large quantities.
1939-1941 Fritz Albert Lipmann (Königsberg,
Preuss, 1899 - Poughkeepsie, New York, 1986) postulates the central
role of ATP in the energy transfer cycle. He coins the phrase "energy-rich
1939-1942 Engelhardt and Militsa N
Lyubimova (?-?) discover the ATPase activity of myosin,
which is therefore an enzyme. The main result of the study
is published in Nature in 1939.
1939-1946 Szent-Györgyi discovers actin
and actomyosin and describes the role of ATP in muscle contraction.