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
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