Abstract
A history of discoveries of a gene and DNA was viewed with respect to people, time and places. It started with G. Mendel and J. Meisher, who discovered a gene in a plant species in 1866 and DNA in animals in 1869, respectively. With recognition that DNA was a chemical substance, A. Kossel identified the four chemical components of DNA without knowing their biological function around the turn of the 19th century. On the other hand F. Griffith found a peculiar activity in a bacterial species in 1928, but victimized by the war before understanding what it was. Those discoveries were made in Europe, but they were still fragmentary. Then, in USA, O. T. Avery, A. Hershey, M. Nirenberg and other scientists organized the European discoveries and elucidated their coordinated biological functions in 1950's and 1960'.