Stone to Silicon

Health & biology · 1961

Genetic code cracked

Nirenberg and Matthaei showed the RNA triplet UUU codes for the amino acid phenylalanine.

Their 1961 experiment began the decoding of all 64 codons, completed by 1966 with Har Gobind Khorana and others. It revealed a nearly universal code that lets genes be read, written and moved between species.

See it in the living treeWikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 1

What it led to 3