Zippers, scissors and xeroxes: from unravelling the double helix to reading the blueprint

Abstract

Only fifty-five years old, the discipline of molecular biology has had a short but intense history. Today, sequencing genes or even whole genomes takes a matter of days, instead of months or years. This paper focuses on the history of molecular biology as it relates to systematics and evolutionary biology. Punctuating this history like signposts on a highway are the four major discoveries explored in this paper: the structure of the DNA molecule; the isolation of restriction endonucleases; development of the Sanger method of DNA sequencing; and, finally, the revolutionary breakthrough that is the polymerase chain reaction. Each signpost is explained and its impact on molecular biology discussed, with the result today being that DNA can be obtained from any organism in a relatively short timeframe without any prior knowledge of the chosen sequence or marker method required for the species under study.