Scientists
Scientists and their discoveries
relevant to AP Biology.
Scientist Name (Ch. X)
• Discovery
• Picture
Scientist Name (Ch. X)
• Discovery
• Picture
Scientist Name (Ch. X)
• Discovery
• Picture
Charles Darwin
• Discovered the Theory of natural selection.
Gregor Mendel
• Idea that organisms transmit genes to
offspring.
Thomas Hunt Morgan (Ch.16.1)
• Showed genes are located along
chromosomes.
Marinus Beijerinck (Ch. 19)
• Discovered the
infectious particle
of tobacco mosaic
disease.
Wendell Stanley(Ch. 19)
• Crystallized and
isolated
infectious
particle of
tobacco mosaic
disease.
Hans Christian Gram(Ch. 27)
• Discovered and
developed gram
straining.
Lawrence Henderson(Ch. 3)
• Highlights the
importance of
water to life.
Life adapts to its
environment
through natural
selection.
Christian Doppler (Ch. 14)
• Explained natural phenomena by math to
train students.
Chris Langdon (Ch. 3)
• Used Biosphere -2 center to test the effects of
verifying concentration of CO3 2- on the rate
of calcification in the coral reef.
Gregor Mendel (Ch. 14)
• Discovered basic principles of heredity by
breeding garden pea plants in experiments,
developed a theory of inheritance several
decades before chromosomes were observed
under microscopes and the significance of
their behaviors were understood.
Hermann Kolber (Ch. 4)
• Made the organic compound acetic acid from
inorganic substances that could be prepared
directly from pure substances.
Franklin Stahl (Chapter 16.2)
• Stahl conducted the
famous Meselson-Stahl
experiment showing that
DNA is replicated by a
semi conservative
mechanism, meaning that
each strand of the DNA
serves as a template for
production of a new
strand.
Reiji Okazaki (Chapter 16.2)
• Okazaki fragments were
originally discovered in
1966 by Kiwako Sakabe,
and Reiji Okazaki during
their research on DNA
replication of
Escherichia coli.
Carolus Linnaeus (Chapter 39.1)
• He discovered that
plants opened their
flowers at certain parts
of the day, and these
patterns can be used as
a 12 hour clock face.
Dmitri Ivanovsky (Chapter 19.1)
• He was the first man
to discover viruses
(1892) and thus one
of the founders of
virology.
Alfred Hershey (Ch. 16.1)
• In 1952 he
discovered that
DNA is the
genetic material
of phage.
Martha Chase (Ch. 16.1)
• In 1952 she
discovered that
DNA is the
genetic material
of phage.
Erwin Chargaff (Ch. 16.1)
• In 1950 he
discovered that
the base
composition of
DNA varies based
on species.
Mendel Gregor
• Discovered heritable factors
Frederick Griffith
• Studied a bacterium that causes pneumonia
Oswald Avery, Maclyn McCarty, Colin
MacLeod
• Discovered the tranforming agent of DNA
Alfred Russel Wallace(Ch.22)
• Developed a
hypothesis of
natural selection
similar to
Darwin’s.
Candace Pert(Ch.48)
• Discovered
endorphins as an
outcome of their
research on the
biochemistry of
behavior.
Earl W. Sutherland (Ch.24)
• Discovered that
epinephrine
stimulates the
breakdown of
glycogen within the
liver cells and
skeletal muscle cells.
Solomon Snyder(Ch.48)
• Provided the first
demonstration that
opiate receptors
exist.
Hans Krebs (Ch. 9.3)
• Largely responsible for
working out the
pathway to discover the
Krebs Cycle
Peter Mitchell
• Awarded Nobel Prize in
1978 for originally
proposing the
chemiosmotic model
(Ch. 9.4)
Rudolf Virchow (Ch. 12)
• He’s a German
Physician, known for his
theory: “Where a cell
exists, there must have
been a preexisting cell,
just as the animal arises
only from an animal
and the plant only from
a plant.”
Cornelis Bernardus
Van Niel
• Van Niel hypothesized that
plants split H2O as a source
of electrons from hydrogen
atoms, releasing O2 as a byproduct. 20 years later it was
confirmed.
Melvin Calvin
• Discovered the second
stage of
photosynthesis, Calvin
cycle. This stage
incorporates CO2 into
organic molecules.
Theodor W. Engelmann
• Used bacteria to
measure rates of
photosynthesis in
filamentous algae. He
was first to
demonstrate the
action spectrum.
Friedrich Wohler (Ch. 4)
• Made Urea from
organic materials
Oliver Smithies (Ch. 13)
• Used Mice To Study
Human Genetic
Disorders.
Aristotle (Ch. 13)
• Noticed life-forms can
be arranged on a scale
in order of complexity.
Carolus Linnaeus (Ch. 13)
• Created Genus- species
naming system.
Justin Scheer (Ch. 7)
• Screened nearly 8,000
compounds for their
ability to bind to a
possible allosteric
binding site and inhibit
the enzymes activity;
his results turned out to
support him. .
Martin Evans (Ch. 21)
• Used molecular and
genetic techniques to
generate mice with any
given gene disabled in
order to study the role
of the gene.
Mario Capecchi (Ch. 21)
• Used molecular and
genetic techniques to
generate mice with any
given gene disabled in
order to study the role
of the gene.
Fredrick Sanger (Ch. 21)
• Came up with the
Deoxyribonucleic Chain
Termination Method,
which determines the
complete nucleotide
sequence of a gene.
Richard Lenski (Ch. 27)
Discovered and
documented adaptive
evolution
Hardy-Weinberg (Ch. 22)
Came up with the solution
for the question of how
genetic diversity is
maintained in a
population.
Charles Darwin (Ch. 22)
Came up with the theory
of evolution that all
species of life came
from one source.
Robert Brown (Ch. 22
• Helped discover that
cells have a nucleus.
Charles Darwin
• Discoveries:
- Darwin recognized that a
population evolves through
the differential reproductive
success of its variant
members.
Gregor Mendel
• Discoveries:
- Mendel published a
theory of inheritance that
helps explain genetic
variation, but his
discoveries had no impact
on biologists until 1900
Edwin Southern
• Discoveries:
- Made up the method
Sothern Blotting, which
combines gel
electrophoresis and nuclei
acid hybridization,
allowing detecting of
bands that include parts
of the B-globin gene.