BSCI 410 
Molecular Genetics 
Fall 2007 

 

Instructor:
Steve Mount 


 

TA:
Zenas Chang 


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Boveri's precondition

"For it is not cell nuclei, not even individual chromosomes, but certain parts of certain chromosomes from certain cells that must be isolated and collected in enormous quantities for analysis; that would be the precondition for placing the chemist in such a position as would allow him to analyse [the heritary material] more minutely than the morphologists."
- Theodor Boveri 1904


This quote shows that even at the dawn of the twentieth century, when it was still an unconfirmed hypothesis that chromosomes carried genetic information and the identification of DNA as the molecule involved was 50 years in the future, it was understood by some that amplification of some kind was an essential precondition for biochemical analysis of genetic information. The accomplishments of molecular biology all depend on the technologies by which this precondition has been met (molecular cloning and polymerase chain reaction).

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