History
- 1930s – first reports of the use of sucrose for gel electrophoresis
- 1955 – introduction of starch gels, mediocre separation
- 1959 – introduction of acrylamide gels; disc electrophoresis (Ornstein and Davis); accurate control of parameters such as pore size and stability; and (Raymond and Weintraub)
- 1969 – introduction of denaturing agents especially SDS separation of protein subunit (Weber and Osborn)
- 1970 – Laemmli separated 28 components of T4 phage using a stacking gel and SDS
- 1975 – 2-dimensional gels (O’Farrell); isoelectric focusing then SDS gel electrophoresis
- 1977 – sequencing gels
- late 1970s – agarose gels
- 1983 – pulsed field gel electrophoresis enables separation of large DNA molecules
- 1983 – introduction of capillary electrophoresis
A 1959 book on electrophoresis by Milan Bier cites references from the 1800s. However, Oliver Smithies made significant contributions. Bier states: "The method of Smithies ... is finding wide application because of its unique separatory power." Taken in context, Bier clearly implies that Smithies' method is an improvement.
Read more about this topic: Gel Electrophoresis
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are rather of the nature of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.”
—Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)
“The best history is but like the art of Rembrandt; it casts a vivid light on certain selected causes, on those which were best and greatest; it leaves all the rest in shadow and unseen.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)