Woese, C. R. and G. E. Fox. 1977. Phylogenetic structure of the prokaryotic domain: The primary kingdoms. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 74: 5088-5090. In Microbiology: A Centenary Perspective, edited by Wolfgang K. Joklik, ASM Press. 1999, p.440 [pdf]

G.E. Fox, K.R. Pechman, and C.R. Woese. 1977. Comparative cataloging of 16S ribosomal ribonucleic acid: molecular approach to procaryotic systematics. Int. J. Syst. Bacteriol. 27:44-57. In Microbiology: A Centenary Perspective, edited by Wolfgang K. Joklik, ASM Press. 1999, p.264 [pdf]

Louise Chow and Richard Roberts, and independently Phillip Sharp show that genes are not uninterrupted strands of genes but are interspersed with non-coding segments that do not specify protein structure. Both make the discovery with adenovirus while looking at viral protein synthesis. This finding establishes a fundamental distinction in information processing between procaryotic and eucaryotic organisms. Roberts and Sharp are awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology in 1993

1993 Nobel Prize

Chow, L. T., R. E. Gelinas, T. R. Broker and R. J. Roberts. 1977. An amazing sequence arrangement at the 5' ends of adenovirus 2 messenger RNA. Cell 12: 1-8. In Microbiology: A Centenary Perspective, edited by Wolfgang K. Joklik, ASM Press. 1999, p.574 [pdf]

S.M. Berget, C. Moore, and P.A. Sharpe. 1977. Spliced segements at the 5'-terminus of adenovirus 2 late mRNA. Proc. Nat'l. Acad. Sci. 74:3171-75. In Microbiology: A Centenary Perspective, edited by Wolfgang K. Joklik, ASM Press. 1999, p.568 [pdf]

Walter Gilbert and Fred Sanger independently develop methods to determine the exact sequence of DNA. Gilbert uses the technique to determine the sequence of the operon of a bacterial genome. Sanger and colleagues use the technique to determine the sequence of all 5375 nucleotides of the bacteriophage phi-X174, the first complete determination of the genome of an organism. With Berg, Gilbert and Sanger are awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1980

1980 Nobel Prize

Maxam, A. M. and W. Gilbert. 1977. A new method for sequencing DNA. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 74: 560.

Sanger, F., G.M. Air, B.G. Barrell, N.L. Brown, A.R. Coulson, J.C. Fiddes, C.A.. Hutchison, P.M. Slocombe, and M. Smith. 1977. Nucleotide sequence of bacteriophage phi X174 DNA. Nature. 165:687-95

Centers for Disease Control researchers Joseph McDade and Charles C. Shepard isolate and identify Legionella pneumophilia as the bacterial pathogen in a newly discovered pulmonary disease. There are now known to be more that 40 species which occur in water settings.

McDade, J. E., C. C. Sheperd, D. W. Fraser, T. R. Tsai, M. A. Redus, W. R. Dowdle, and Laboratory Investigation Team. 1977. Legionaire's disease: Isolation of a bacterium and demonstration of its role in other respiratory disease. N. Engl. J. Med. 297: 1197-1203. In Microbiology: A Centenary Perspective, edited by Wolfgang K. Joklik, ASM Press. 1999, p.62 [pdf]

Mothers in Old Lyme (CT) describe a high level of illness among children, which is diagnosed as juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. A research group led by Alan Steere finally begins to investigate in 1977 and using an epidemiological approach finds that deer ticks are the vector.

Steere, A. C., S. E. Malawista, D. R. Snydman, R. E. Shope, W. A. Andiman, M. R. Ross, and F. M. Steele. 1977. Lyme arthritis: An epidemic of oligoarticular arthritis in children and adults in three Connecticut communities. Arthritis Rheum. 20: 7-17.

Eugene Nester, Milton Gordon and Mary-Dell Chilton show that genes on the A. tumefaciens plasmid are transferred into infected plant cells.

Chilton, M.-D., M.H. Drummond, D.J. Merlo, Daniela Sciaky, A.L. Montoya, M.P. Gordon and E.W. Nester Stable incorporation of plasmid DNA into higher plant cells: the molecular basis of crown gall tumorigenesis. Cell 11:263-271

Plant Microbiology: Century of Discovery, with Golden Years Ahead, ASM News 65, 1999, p.358

Holger Jannasch shows that microbial sulfur oxidation is a source of energy for dense animal colonies in the absence of light at deep sea hydrothermal vents. Jannasch and Wirsen use a device for sampling of microbial populations at depths of 6000 meters and then study the population without decompression.

H.W. Jannasch and C.O. Wirsen. 1977. Retrieval of concentrated and undecompressed microbial populations from the deep sea. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 33:642-46. In Microbiology: A Centenary Perspective, edited by Wolfgang K. Joklik, ASM Press. 1999, p.280 [pdf]

Wirsen, C. O. and H. W. Jannasch. 1978. Physiological and morphological observations on Thiovulum sp. J. Bacteriol. 136: 765-774.

Smallpox (variola) is declared officially eliminated; last natural case seen in Somalia in 1977. Small quantities remain held under tightly controlled conditions in the U.S. and former U.S.S.R. THE ONLY MICROBIAL DISEASE EVER COMPLETELY DEFEATED.

Victory Over Variola, ASM News 44, 1978. p. 639 [pdf]

Arita, I. 1979. Virological evidence for the success of the smallpox eradication programme. Nature 279: 293-298.

Henderson, D.A. 1979. The saga of smallpox eradication: an end and a beginning. Can. J. Pub. Hlth. 70:212-27

The U. S. Supreme Court rules that microorganisms altered in the laboratory can be patented.

Ananda Chakrabarty receives a patent for metabolizing Pseudomonads developed by conjugation that can degrade camphor, octene, salicylate, and naphthalene.

United States Patent #425944. Issued March 31, 1981.

Helen Whiteley and Ernest Schnepf at the University of Washington clone a Bt toxin gene.

Schnepf, H.E., and H. R. Whiteley. Cloning and expression of the Bacillus thuringiensis crystal protein in Escherichia coli. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci.78:2893-2897

U. S. Pharmaceutical manufacturer Eli Lilly markets the first genetically-engineered human insulin.

Stanley Prusiner finds evidence that a class of infectious proteins he call prions cause scrapie, a fatal neurodegenerative disease of sheep. Prusiner is awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology in 1997

1997 Nobel Prize

Prusiner, S. B. 1982. Novel proteinaceaous particles cause scrapie. Science 216: 136-144.

Karl Stetter isolates hydrothermophilic microbes (Archea) with optimal growth at 105 degrees C, first from shallow marine springs and later from deep sea smokers.

Huber, H., M. Thomm, H. Koenig, G. Thies and Stetter, K. O. 1982. Methanococcus thermolithotrophicus, a novel thermophilic methanogen. Arch. Microbiol. 132: 47-50.

Willy Burgdorfer and colleagues report successful investigation and treatment of Lyme Disease. They were able to isolate the organism, a treponema-like spirochete, and show antibody formation in patients with clinically diagnosed Lyme disease.

Magnarelli, L. A., J. F. Anderson, R. N. Philip, W. Burgdorfer, and E. A. Caspar. 1982. Endemicity of spotted fever group rickettsiae in Connecticut, USA. Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg. 30: 715-721.

W. Burgdorfer, A.G. Barbour, S.F. Hayes, J.L. Benach, E. Grunwaldt, and J.D. Davis. 1982. Lyme disease - a tick borne spirochetosis?. Science. 216:1317-19. In Microbiology: A Centenary Perspective, edited by Wolfgang K. Joklik, ASM Press. 1999, p.70 [pdf]

Hartmut Michel succeeds in preparing highly ordered crystals of the photosynthetic reaction center from a purple bacterium. Together with Johann Diesendorfer and Robert Huber, Michel elucidates the details of the photosynthetically active components of protein, quinone, and iron. The structural picture agrees with the order of electron transfer steps established by other experiments. Michel, Diesenhofer, and Huber are awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1988

1988 Nobel Prize

Michel, H. 1982. Characterization and crystal packing of 3-dimensional bacteriorhodopsin crystals. EMBO J. 1: 1267-1272.

Deisendorfer, J., H. Michel, and R. Huber. 1985. The structural basis of photosynthetic light reactions in bacteria. Trends Biochem. Sci. 10: 243-248.

Luc Montagnier and Robert Gallo announce their discovery of the immunodeficiency virus (HIV) believed to cause AIDS.

Gallo, R. C., P. S. Sarin, E. P. Gelmann, M. Robert-Guroff, E. Richardson, V. S. Ka lyanaraman, D. Mann, G. D. Sidhu, and R. E. Stahl. 1983. Isolation of human T-cell leukemia virus in acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). Science 220: 865-867.

Montagnier, L., J., L. C. Duquet, C. Axler, S. Chamaret, J. Gruest, M. T. Nugeyre, F. Rey, F. Barne-Sinoussi and J. C. Chermann, 1984. A new type of retrovirus isolated from the patients presenting with lymphadenopathy and acquired immune deficiency syndrome: structural and antigenic relatedness with equine infectious anemia virus. Ann. Virol. (Paris) 135: 119-134.

L. W. Riley and colleagues describe for the first time the involvement of E. coli O:157 as an infectious diarrhogenic agent.

L.W. Riley, R.S. Remis, S.D. Helgerson, H.B. McGee, J.G. Wells, B.R. Davis, R.J. Hebert, E.S. Olcott, L.M. Johnson, N.T. Hargrett, P.A. Blake, and M.L. Cohen. 1983. Hemorrhagic colitis associated with a rare E. coli serotype. N. Engl. J. Med. 308:681-85. In Microbiology: A Centenary Perspective, edited by Wolfgang K. Joklik, ASM Press. 1999, p.74 [pdf]

Jeff Schell and Marc Van Montagu, Mary-Dell Chilton and colleagues, and scientists at Monsanto introduce genes into plants by using A. tumefaciens plasmid vectors.

Zambryski, P., H. Joos, C. Genetello, J. Leemans, M. Van Montagu and J. Schell. Ti plasmid vector for the introduction of DNA into plant cells without the alteration of their normal regeneration capacity. EMBO J 2:2143

Ralph Isberg and Stanley Falkow clone a gene (inv) from Yersinia psuedotuberculosis that confers an invasive phenotype on the non-invasive strain HB101 of E. coli. This is the first demonstration of transfer of such a virulence property by a single gene.

Beeder, A. B., and S. Falkow. 1984. Characterization of common virulence plasmids in Yersinia species and their role in the expression of outer membrane proteins. Infect. Immun. 43: 108-114.

Barry Marshall demonstrates that isolates from patients with ulcers all contain a bacterium called Campylobacter pylori, later called Helicobacter pylori. Marshall proves that the bacterium is the etiologic agent by swallowing a dose and developing gastritis, the precursor to ulcer disease. The bacterium uses a novel urease to produce ammonia, allowing it to survive at low pH.

Warren, J. R., and B. Marshall. 1983. Unidentified curved bacilli on gastric epithelium in active chronic gastritis. Lancet 1: 1273. In Microbiology: A Centenary Perspective, edited by Wolfgang K. Joklik, ASM Press. 1999, p.80 [pdf]

Robert Gallo, Dani Bolognesi, Sam Broder, and others show that AZT inhibits the infectivity and cytopathic effects of HIV in vitro. This discovery is a significant advance in slowing the infective cycle of the virus.

Mitsuya, H. K. W. Weinhold, S. N. Lehrman, R. C. Gallo, D. Bolognesi, D. W. Barry, and S. Broder. 1985. 3'-Azido-3'deoxythymidine(BWA509U). An agent that inhibits the infectivity and cytopathic effect of human T lymphotropic virus type III/lymphadenopathy-associated virus in vitro. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 82: 7096-7100.

U. S. Department of Agriculture grants first license to market a genetically-engineered living organism-a virus to vaccinate against a herpetic disease in swine.

Roger Beachy, Rob Fraley and colleagues show that when tobacco plants are transformed with the gene of the coat protein of tobacco mosaic virus, the plants are resistant to the virus. This opened up a new field in which plants are transformed with the coat protein from other viruses or with other viral genes.

Abel, P.P., R.S. Nelson, B. De, N. Hoffman, S.G. Rogers, R.T. Fraley, and R.N. Beachy. 1986. Delay of disease development in transgenic plants that express the tobacco mosaic virus coat protein gene. Science 232:738-43