Before Watson and Crick in 1953 Came Friedrich Miescher in 1869

In 1869, the young Swiss biochemist Friedrich Miescher discovered the molecule we now refer to as DNA, developing techniques for its extraction. In this paper we explain why his name is all but forgotten, and his role in the history of genetics is mostly overlooked. We focus on the role of national rivalries and disciplinary turf wars in shaping historical memory, and on how the story we tell shapes our understanding of the science. We highlight that Miescher could just as correctly be portrayed as the person who understood the chemical nature of chromatin (before the term existed), and the first to suggest how stereochemistry might serve as the basis for the transmission of hereditary variation.

6. Genes

There is no satisfactory one-line answer to the question ‘what exactly is a gene?’. The reasons why a precise definition is elusive are particularly interesting, and raise a number of philosophical subtleties. ‘Genes’ delves briefly into the history of genetics in order to understand them. It first looks at the work of Gregor Mendel in the 1860s and then the era of classical genetics in the 1920s and 1930s. It then moves on to molecular genetics, which came to fruition in the 1950s. How does the gene of Mendelian or classical genetics relate to the gene of molecular genetics? This question has long occupied philosophers of biology.