NCERT BIOLOGY – ALL SCIENTISTS, DATES &

KEY POINTS
Yakeen 3.0 2024 | Akanksha Ma'am

THE LIVING WORLD

1. Ernst Mayr | 1904–2004
• Darwin of 20th century
• Triple crown of biology
• Gave the currently accepted definition of Biological Species

2. Carolus Linnaeus | -
• Binomial nomenclature system – naming system used by biologists all over the world
• Used 'Systema Naturae' as title of his publication

BIOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION
3. Aristotle | -
• Earliest to attempt a more scientific basis for classification
• Father of Biology
• In Linnaeus' time, a Two Kingdom system of classification with Plantae and Animalia
kingdoms was developed

4. Carolus Linnaeus | -
• Father of the Kingdom system (Two Kingdom Classification)

5. R.H. Whittaker | 1969

• Proposed Five Kingdom Classification in 1969

BIOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION (Viruses)

6. Dmitri Ivanowsky | 1892
• Recognised certain microbes as causal organism of the mosaic disease of tobacco
• Found them to be smaller than bacteria as they passed through bacteria-proof filters

7. M.W. Beijerinck | 1898

 • Demonstrated that extract of infected tobacco plants could cause infection in healthy
plants
• Called the fluid 'Contagium vivum fluidum'
• Called these new organisms as 'Viruses' (venom/poisonous)

8. W.M. Stanley | 1935

• Showed that viruses could be crystallised
• Crystals consist largely of proteins

9. T.O. Diener | 1971

• Discovered Viroids in 1971

PLANT KINGDOM
10. Carolus Linnaeus | -
• Artificial system of classification based on androecium structure

11. George Bentham and Joseph Dalton Hooker | -

• Gave natural classification for flowering plants
• Based on natural affinities – considered internal features: ultrastructure, anatomy,
embryology and phytochemistry

12. Katherine ESAU | 1960

• Published 'The Anatomy of Seed Plants' (also referred to as Webster's of Plant Biology)
in 1960

CELL: THE UNIT OF LIFE

13. G.N. Ramachandran | -
• Protein structure – Triple helical structure of collagen
• Ramachandran plot – analysis of conformations of proteins (structure & PYQ)

14. Matthias Schleiden | 1838

• German botanist; examined a large number of plants
• Reported all plants are composed of different kinds of cells which form tissues of the
plant

15. Theodore Schwann | 1839

• German Zoologist; studied different types of animal cells
• Reported cells had a thin outer layer – today known as 'plasma membrane'
• Concluded that the presence of cell wall is a unique character of plant cells
16. Rudolf Virchow | 1855
• First explained that cells divide and new cells are formed from pre-existing cells
• Omnis cellula-e cellula
• Modified the hypothesis of Schleiden and Schwann to give cell theory a final shape

17. Gram (Gram Staining) | -

• Developed the staining procedure to classify bacteria into Gram positive and Gram
negative based on cell envelope differences

18. Singer and Nicolson | 1972

• Proposed improved Fluid Mosaic Model of the structure of cell membrane (1972)
• Widely accepted model

19. A.V. Leeuwenhoek | -

• First to observe the living cell

20. Robert Brown | 1831

• Discovered the Nucleus in 1831

21. Camillo Golgi | 1898

• First observed densely stained reticular structures near the nucleus (1898)
• These were later named Golgi bodies after him

22. George Palade | 1953

• Ribosomes – granular structures first observed under electron microscope as dense
particles (1953)

23. Flemming | -
• Named the nuclear material stained by basic dyes as 'chromatin'

BIOMOLECULES
24. Watson and Crick | -
• Watson-Crick model – famous secondary structure of DNA (Double Helix)

PHOTOSYNTHESIS IN HIGHER PLANTS

25. Joseph Priestley | 1733–1804 | Experiments: 1770 | Oxygen discovery: 1774
• Performed experiments revealing the essential role of air in growth of green plants (1770)
• Discovered Oxygen in 1774
26. Jan Ingenhousz | 1730–1799
• Showed that sunlight is essential to the plant process that purifies air
• Showed it is only the green parts of plants that could release oxygen
• In bright sunlight – small bubbles formed around green parts; in dark they did not

27. Julius von Sachs | 1854

• Provided evidence for production of glucose when plants grow (1854)
• Showed glucose is stored as starch; later studies showed green substance in plants is
chlorophyll located in chloroplasts
• Chloroplasts are where glucose is made

28. T.W. Engelmann | 1843–1909

• Performed experiments using a prism to split light into spectral components and
illuminated a green alga Cladophora
• Used aerobic bacteria to detect sites of O2 evolution
• Bacteria accumulated mainly in blue and red light region
• First Action Spectrum of photosynthesis described – resembles absorption spectra of
chlorophyll a and b

29. Cornelius van Niel | 1897–1985

• Based on studies of purple and green bacteria
• Demonstrated photosynthesis is a light-dependent reaction in which hydrogen from a
suitable oxidisable compound reduces carbon dioxide to carbohydrates
• O2 comes from water (H2O)

30. Peter Mitchell | -

• Proposed the Chemiosmotic Hypothesis

31. Melvin Calvin | -

• Use of radioactive 14C in algal photosynthesis studies led to discovery that first CO2
fixation product is a 3-carbon organic acid
• Worked out the complete biosynthetic pathway – called Calvin Cycle after him
• 2 × 3-PGA

32. Hatch and Slack | -

• Discovered the C4 Pathway (also called Hatch & Slack Pathway)

33. Blackman | 1905

• Law of Limiting Factors (1905)

RESPIRATION IN PLANTS
34. Gustav Embden, Otto Meyerhof, and J. Parnas | -
• Gave the scheme of Glycolysis
• Often referred to as EMP Pathway

35. Hans Krebs | -

• Tricarboxylic acid cycle (Krebs' Cycle) – first elucidated by Hans Krebs

PLANT GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT

36. Charles Darwin and Francis Darwin | -
• Observed coleoptiles of canary grass responded to unilateral illumination by growing
towards light source (Phototropism)
• Concluded the tip of coleoptile was the site of transmittable influence causing bending of
the entire coleoptile

37. F.W. Went | -

• Auxin was isolated from tips of coleoptiles of oat seedlings

38. E. Kurosawa | 1926

• Reported appearance of symptoms of 'bakanae' (foolish seedling) disease in rice seedlings
treated with sterile filtrates of fungus Gibberella fujikuroi (1926)
• Active substances later identified as gibberellic acid

39. F. Skoog | -
• Co-workers observed callus (undifferentiated cells) from internodal segments of tobacco
stems proliferated only when nutrients medium was supplemented with auxins + extracts
of vascular tissues, yeast extract, coconut milk or DNA

40. Miller et al. | 1955

• Identified and crystallised cytokinesis-promoting active substance (1955)
• Named it Kinetin – N6 furfurylaminopurine

41. Three independent researches (mid-1960s) | Mid-1960s

• Reported purification and chemical characterisation of three different kinds of inhibitors:
inhibitor-B, abscission II, and dormin
• All three proved to be chemically identical – named Abscisic Acid (ABA)

42. H.H. Cousins | 1910

• Confirmed release of a volatile substance (Ethylene) from ripened oranges that hastened
ripening of stored unripened bananas (1910)
HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY
43. Alfonso Corti | -
• Studied cardiovascular systems of reptiles
• Described the Mammalian Auditory System (Organ of Corti)

NEURAL CONTROL AND COORDINATION

44. Nissl | -
• Nissl's granules – granular bodies found in cell body of neurons
• Cell body of Dendrite → RNA → Protein Synthesis

45. Ranvier | -
• Nodes of Ranvier – gaps between two adjacent myelin sheaths

CHEMICAL COORDINATION AND INTEGRATION

46. Addison | -
• Addison's Disease – caused by underproduction of hormones by adrenal cortex
• Alters carbohydrate metabolism causing acute weakness and fatigue
• Both Glucocost & Mineral deficiency (hypo)

SEXUAL REPRODUCTION IN FLOWERING PLANTS

47. Panchanan Maheshwari | -
• Father of Indian Embryology
• Worked on embryological aspects and popularised use of embryological characters in
taxonomy
• Established Department of Botany, University of Delhi
• Worked on test tube fertilization and intra-ovarian pollination
• Brought out the very first text books of Biology for Higher Secondary Schools by NCERT
in 1964

REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH
48. Government of India – Family Planning | 1951
• Family planning programmes were initiated in 1951
49. Government of India – MTP | 1971 / 2017
• Government of India legalised MTP in 1971 with strict conditions to avoid misuse
• The Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Act, 2017 was enacted to reduce
incidence of illegal abortion and maternal mortality

PRINCIPLES OF INHERITANCE AND VARIATIONS

50. Gregor Mendel | 1856–1863 (experiments) | Published 1865 | Unrecognised till 1900
• Conducted hybridisation experiments on garden peas for seven years (1856–1863)
• Proposed the Laws of Inheritance
• Called hereditary factors as 'factors' – now called genes
• Introduced Test Cross
• Published work in 1865 but remained unrecognised till 1900

51. de Vries, Correns and von Tschermak | 1900

• Independently rediscovered Mendel's results on inheritance of characters in 1900

52. By 1902 | 1902

• Chromosome movement during meiosis had been worked out by 1902

53. Sutton and Boveri | 1902

• Argued pairing and separation of chromosomes would lead to segregation of a pair of
factors
• Sutton united chromosomal segregation with Mendelian principles
• Called it the Chromosomal Theory of Inheritance (1902)

54. Thomas Hunt Morgan | -

• Experimental verification of the chromosomal theory of inheritance by Morgan and
colleagues
• Led to discovering the basis for the variation that sexual reproduction produced
• Father of Experimental Genetics

55. Morgan | -
• Attributed physical association or linkage of two genes
• Coined the term 'linkage' for physical association of genes on a chromosome
• Coined the term 'recombination' for generation of non-parental gene combinations

56. Alfred Sturtevant (student of Morgan) | -

• Used frequency of recombination between gene pairs on same chromosome as measure of
distance between genes
• Mapped their position on the chromosome (Linkage/Gene Map)
57. Henking | 1891
• Could trace a specific nuclear structure throughout spermatogenesis in a few insects (1891)
• 50% of sperm received this structure after spermatogenesis; other 50% did not
• Named it 'X body' but could not explain its significance
• Later investigations concluded 'X body' of Henking was in fact a chromosome – named X-
chromosome

58. Langdon Down | 1866

• First described Down's Syndrome (1866)
• Trisomy of 21st chromosome

MOLECULAR BASIS OF INHERITANCE

59. Friedrich Meischer | 1869
• DNA as acidic substance present in nucleus was first identified by Friedrich Meischer in
1869
• Named it 'Nuclein'

60. James Watson and Francis Crick | 1953

• Based on X-ray diffraction data by Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin
• Proposed the famous Double Helix model for structure of DNA (1953)

61. Erwin Chargaff | -

• Observed that for double stranded DNA, ratios between Adenine & Thymine and Guanine
& Cytosine are constant and equal one
• A+G = T+C; Pu = Py; Pu/Py = 1

62. Francis Crick | -

• Proposed the Central Dogma in molecular biology
• Genetic information flows: DNA → RNA → Protein

63. Frederick Griffith | 1928

• In 1928, in a series of experiments with Streptococcus pneumoniae (bacterium responsible
for pneumonia), witnessed a miraculous transformation in the bacteria
• Transforming Principle experiment

64. Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod and Maclyn McCarty | 1933–44

• Prior to their work, genetic material was thought to be a protein
• Worked to determine the biochemical nature of 'transforming principle' in Griffith's
experiment (1933–44)
• Biochemical Characterisation of Transforming Principle
65. Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase | 1952
• Unequivocal proof that DNA is the genetic material came from their experiments (1952)
• Worked with viruses that infect bacteria called bacteriophages
• Used P32 (DNA) and S35 (Protein) to prove DNA is genetic material
• Transduction

66. Matthew Meselson and Franklin Stahl | 1958

• Performed experiment to show DNA replicates semi-conservatively in E. coli (1958)
• Subsequently proved in higher organisms

67. Taylor and colleagues | 1958

• Used radioactive thymidine to detect distribution of newly synthesised DNA in
chromosomes of Vicia faba (faba beans)
• Proved DNA in chromosomes also replicates semi-conservatively (1958)

68. George Gamow | -

• Physicist who argued since only 4 bases code for 20 amino acids, code should be a
combination of bases
• Suggested code should be made up of 3 nucleotides (triplet)

69. Har Gobind Khorana | -

• Chemical method developed by Khorana was instrumental in synthesising RNA molecules
with defined combinations of bases (homopolymers and copolymers)
• Provided proof that codon was a triplet

70. Marshall Nirenberg | -

• Cell-free system for protein synthesis finally helped the genetic code to be deciphered

71. Severo Ochoa | -

• Enzyme (polynucleotide phosphorylase) helpful in polymerising RNA with defined sequences
in a template-independent manner (enzymatic synthesis of RNA)

72. Francois Jacob and Jacque Monod | -

• Elucidation of the lac operon was result of close association between geneticist Francois
Jacob and biochemist Jacque Monod

73. Human Genome Project (HGP) | Launched: 1990 | Completed: 2003

• Launched in 1990; 13-year project
• Coordinated by U.S. Department of Energy and National Institute of Health
• Wellcome Trust (U.K.) became a major partner during early years
• Additional contributions from Japan, France, Germany, China
• Completed in 2003
74. Frederick Sanger | -
• Fragments were sequenced using automated DNA sequencers working on principle of
method developed by Sanger
• Also credited for developing method for determination of amino acid sequences in proteins

75. Chromosome 1 Sequencing | May 2006

• Sequence of chromosome 1 was completed only in May 2006 (last of 24 human
chromosomes – 22 autosomes, X and Y)

76. Alec Jeffreys | -

• DNA Fingerprinting technique was initially developed by Alec Jeffreys

EVOLUTION
77. Big Bang Theory | -
• Universe is very old – almost 20 billion years old
• Big Bang Theory explains origin of universe

78. Earth Formation | ~4.5 billion years ago

• Earth was supposed to have been formed about 4.5 billion years back

79. Life Appeared | ~4 billion years ago

• Life appeared 500 million years after earth's formation – almost 4 billion years back

80. Louis Pasteur | -

• Demonstrated by careful experimentation that life comes only from pre-existing life
• Showed in pre-sterilised flasks, life did not come from killed yeast; in flask open to air,
new living organisms arose from 'killed yeast'
• Spontaneous generation theory dismissed once and for all

81. Oparin (Russia) and Haldane (England) | -

• Proposed that the first form of life could have come from pre-existing non-living organic
molecules (RNA, protein, etc.)
• Formation of life preceded by chemical evolution – formation of diverse organic molecules
from inorganic constituents

82. S.L. Miller | 1953

• American scientist; created similar conditions in laboratory scale (1953)
• Created electric discharge in a closed flask containing CH4, H2, NH3 and water vapour at
800°C
• Observed formation of amino acids
83. First non-cellular life forms | ~3 billion years ago
• Could have originated 3 billion years back
• Would have been giant molecules (RNA, Protein, Polysaccharides etc.) – capsules
reproduced their molecules

84. First cellular life forms | ~2000 million years ago

• First cellular form of life did not possibly originate till about 2000 million years ago
• These were probably single-cells

85. Charles Darwin | -

• Sea voyage in HMS Beagle round the world
• Theory of Special Creation has three connotations – Darwin challenged all three
• Natural Selection – fitness refers ultimately to reproductive fitness
• Those better fit in environment leave more progeny → survive more → selected by nature
→ Natural Selection

86. Alfred Wallace | -

• Naturalist who worked in Malay Archipelago
• Came to similar conclusions around the same time as Darwin

87. Darwin – Industrial Melanism | 1850s (before), 1920 (after industrialisation)

• Collection of moths in England (1850s, before industrialisation) – more white-winged moths
on trees
• After industrialisation (1920) – more dark-winged moths in same area
• Darwin visited Galapagos Islands during journey

88. Ernst Haeckel | -

• Proposed embryological support for evolution
• Observed certain features during embryonic stage common to all vertebrates but absent
in adult (e.g., vestigial gill slits in human embryos)

89. Karl Ernst von Baer | -

• Performed careful study that disapproved Haeckel's embryological proposal
• Noted embryos never pass through adult stages of other animals

90. Lamarck | -
• French naturalist; said evolution of life forms occurred but was driven by use and disuse
of organs
• Gave examples of Giraffes
• Even before Darwin

91. Thomas Malthus | -

 • His work on populations possibly influenced Darwin

92. Hugo de Vries | First decade of 20th century

• Based on work on evening primrose brought forth the idea of mutations
• Mutation = large difference arising suddenly in a population
• Believed mutation causes evolution, not minor heritable variations

MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION / HARDY-WEINBERG

PRINCIPLE
93. First cellular forms of life | ~2000 mya
• About 2000 million years ago (mya) the first cellular forms of life appeared on earth

94. Hardy-Weinberg Principle | -

• Allele frequencies in a population are stable and constant from generation to generation
• Gene pool (total genes and alleles in population) remains constant – Genetic Equilibrium
• Sum total of all allelic frequencies is 1: p + q = 1; p² + 2pq + q² = 1

HUMAN HEALTH AND DISEASE

113. Monkambu Sambasivan Swaminathan with Norman Borlaug | -
• Initiated collaboration for Green Revolution, introduction of Mexican varieties of wheat in
India

114. Hippocrates (and Indian Ayurveda) | -

• Early Greeks like Hippocrates as well as Indian Ayurveda system of medicine asserted
persons with 'blackbile' belonged to hot personality and would have fevers
• 'Good humor' hypothesis of health

115. William Harvey | -

• Discovery of blood circulation by William Harvey using experimental method
• Demonstration of normal body temperature in persons with blackbile using thermometer
disproved the 'good humor' hypothesis

116. Mary Mallon ('Typhoid Mary') | -

• Widal test – a classic case in medicine involving Mary Mallon nicknamed Typhoid Mary

MICROBES IN HUMAN WELFARE

120. Alexander Fleming | -
• Penicillin was the first antibiotic to be discovered – chance discovery by Fleming while
working on Staphylococci bacteria

121. Ernest Chain and Howard Florey | Nobel Prize: 1945

• Established full potential of Penicillin as an effective antibiotic
• Antibiotic extensively used to treat American soldiers wounded in World War II
• Fleming, Chain and Florey were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1945

BIOTECHNOLOGY: PRINCIPLES AND PROCESSES

122. Stanley Cohen and Herbert Boyer | 1972
• Construction of the first recombinant DNA accomplished in 1972

123. Restriction Enzymes (First discovered) | 1963

• In 1963, two enzymes responsible for restricting growth of bacteriophage in E. coli were
isolated
• One added methyl groups to DNA; the other cut DNA – the latter was called restriction
endonuclease

124. Hind II (First restriction endonuclease) | ~5 years after 1963

• First restriction endonuclease Hind II – functioning depended on specific DNA nucleotide
sequence
• Isolated and characterised five years later

125. Restriction Enzymes Today | -

• Today more than 900 restriction enzymes have been isolated from over 230 strains of
bacteria
• Each recognises different recognition sequences

BIOTECHNOLOGY AND ITS APPLICATIONS

126. Recombinant Therapeutics | -
• About 30 recombinant therapeutics approved for human use worldwide
• In India, 12 of these are presently being marketed

127. Eli Lilly (American company) | 1983

• In 1983, prepared two DNA sequences corresponding to A and B chains of human insulin
• Introduced them in plasmids of E. coli to produce insulin chains

128. First Clinical Gene Therapy | 1990

 • First clinical gene therapy given in 1990 to a 4-year-old girl with adenosine deaminase
(ADA) deficiency

129. Rosie (Transgenic Cow) | 1997

• First transgenic cow Rosie produced human protein-enriched milk (2.4 grams per litre) in
1997
• Milk contained human alpha-lactalbumin – more balanced product for human babies than
natural cow milk

130. Basmati Rice Patent Issue | 1997

• In 1997, an American company got patent rights on Basmati rice through the US Patent
and Trademark Office

ORGANISMS AND POPULATIONS

133. Ramdeo Misra | 1908–1998
• Father of Ecology in India

134. Verhulst-Pearl Logistic Growth | 1981

• In 1981, r value for human population in India was 0.0205
• Logistic growth = sigmoid curve – called Verhulst-Pearl Logistic Growth

135. Gause | -
• Gause's Competitive Exclusion Principle: two closely related species competing for same
resources cannot co-exist indefinitely; competitively inferior one will be eliminated
eventually

136. Darwinian Fitness | -

• Life History Variation: Populations evolve to maximise their reproductive fitness (also
called Darwinian Fitness – high r value) in the habitat they live in

137. Prickly Pear Cactus in Australia | Early 1920s

• Prickly pear cactus introduced into Australia in early 1920s caused havoc (Predation
example)

138. Darwin on Competition | -

• Darwin spoke of struggle for existence and survival of the fittest
• Was convinced interspecific competition is a potent force in organic evolution

139. Gause (Competitive Exclusion lab experiment) | -

• Relatively easy to demonstrate in laboratory experiments – when resources limited,
competitively superior species will eventually eliminate the other species
140. Connell | -
• Elegant field experiments on rocky sea coasts of Scotland
• Larger, competitively superior barnacle Balanus dominates intertidal area and excludes
smaller barnacle Chathamalus (competitive release)

141. MacArthur | -
• Showed five closely related species of warblers living on same tree were able to avoid
competition and co-exist due to behavioural differences in foraging activities

ECOSYSTEM
142. Lindmann | 1942
• 10% Law – proposed by Lindmann (1942)
• Follows Second Law of Thermodynamics

BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION

143. Edward Wilson | -
• Sociobiologist who popularised the term 'Biodiversity' to describe combined diversity at
all levels of biological organisation

144. IUCN (2004) | 2004

• According to IUCN (2004), total number of plant and animal species described so far is
slightly more than 1.5 million

145. Robert May | -

• More conservative and scientifically sound estimate of global species diversity – about 7
million

146. Alexander von Humboldt | -

• Great German naturalist and geographer
• During pioneering explorations in wilderness of South American jungles, observed species
richness increased with increasing explored area, but only up to a limit
• Species-Area Relationships: S = CA^Z; log S = log C + Z log A

147. David Tilman | -

• Long-term ecosystem experiments using outdoor plots
• Plots with more species showed less year-to-year variation in total biomass
• Increased diversity contributed to higher productivity

148. Paul Ehrlich (Stanford ecologist) | -

 • Rivet Popper Hypothesis – analogy of airplane as ecosystem, rivets as species, rivets on
wings as key species
• SPEAR: S-Stanford, P-Paul, E-Ehrlich, A-Airplane analogy, R-Rivet popper hypothesis

149. IUCN Red List | 2004

• IUCN Red List (2004) documents extinction of 784 species including 338 vertebrates, 359
invertebrates and 87 plants in last 500 years

150. Convention on Biological Diversity ('Earth Summit') | 1992

• Historic Convention on Biological Diversity held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992
• Called upon all nations to take appropriate measures for conservation of biodiversity and
sustainable utilisation of benefits

151. World Summit on Sustainable Development – Johannesburg | 2002

• Held in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2002
• 190 countries pledged commitment to achieve by 2010 a significant reduction in the
current rate of biodiversity loss at global, regional and local levels