Landmarks in the evolution of proteomics

1860 Friedrich Miescher identified acid and basic protein components in cell nuclei which was mistakenly believed to carry the genetic material

1940 Beadle and Tatum linked genes to unique protein products and formulated the one gene - one protein concept that has now been revised as one gene codes more than one protein.

1953 Identification of the double-stranded structure of the DNA (Watson and Crick )

1956 Separation of proteins with a combination of paper and starch gel two-dimensional electrophoresis (Smithies and Poulik )

1961 Modern concept of gene expression following discovery of messenger RNA, deciphering of genetic code and description of theory of genetic regulatio n of protein synthesis.

1967 Protein sequencing defined and automated (Edman and Begg )

1970 Isoelectric focusing and gradient gel electrophoresis: a two -dimensional technique (Kenrick and Margolis )

1972 The Protein Data Bank with a collection of ten X-ray crystallographic protein structures (Bernstein et al )

1975 The modern form of two -dimensional electrophoresis of proteins by high resolution separation (O'Farrell )

1981  Use of 2-D polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (2-D PAGE) as the core methodology for pharmaceutical and toxicological studies (Anderson )

1982 The concept of mapping the human proteome was put forward (Anderson)

1986 Coined the word "Genomics" by Roderick as title of the journal, which started publication in 1987 (Kuska ).

1986 Creation of the first protein-sequence database -- SWISS-PROT -- at University of Geneva, Switzerland

1987 Formation of the first proteomics company - Large Scale Biology Corporation

1995 Definition of the proteome (Wilkins)

1997 Publication of the first book on proteomics (Wilkins et al )

1999 The first Chair in Proteomics created at the Universiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands. Occupant is Prof. Ian Humphery-Smith.

2000 March Publication of the most complete proteome of a whole organism, the bacterium Mycoplasma genitalium

2001 Sequencing of the human genome completed.