1910s Timeline - John Innes Centre

inhibits the spindle fibres so that
sets of divided chromosomes
fail to separate and are enclosed
in a common nuclear
membrane). The multiplication
of chromosomes is also often
associated with desirable traits
in the plants such as being larger
in size and more robust. Hence
the ‘Colchicine Method’ is seen
as potentially useful for making
artificial polyploids (plants with
cells that contain multiple,
complete sets of
chromosomes). In many cases
colchicine is found to be much
more effective in inducing
polyploidy than the ‘heat-shock’
treatments that are already in
use.
By the early 1940s many
experiments are underway at
JIHI to produce new polyploids.
These studies have gathered
sufficient momentum by 1943
for C D Darlington to announce
‘the invention of new methods
of making polyploid plants’ (by
P. T. Thomas in the Pomology
Department) as a major branch
of plant breeding work at JIHI.
The intention is that the new
polyploids will be used either to
produce new hybrids, or to
preserve existing hybrids by
restoring their fertility. For the
first time the prospect of
creating new ‘synthetic’ plants is
opened up and the term
‘genetics engineer’ is already in
circulation. Much later, the
possession of this new
molecular tool was important in
getting biologists to think of
biological processes in
molecular terms (Goodman
1998).
See also:
Jordan Goodman, ‘Plants, Cells
and Bodies: The Molecular
Biography of Colchicine, 1930-
1975’, pp. 17-46 in Soraya de
Chadarevian and Harmke
Kamminga (eds), Molecularizing
Biology and Medicine,
Amsterdam: Harwood
Academic Publishers, 1998.
M. Crane and D. Lewis,
‘Genetical studies in pears’,
Journal of Genetics, 43 (1942):
31-43.
[Gordon Haskell], ‘Making new
plants: the Colchicine Method’,
in The Fruit, the Seed and the
Soil, Edinburgh: Oliver and
Boyd, 1949 and later editions.
O. J. Eigsti and P. Dustin Jr.,
Colchicine in Agriculture,
Medicine, Biology and Chemistry,
Ames, Iowa: Iowa State College
Press, 1955.
1943 Discovery of
Streptomycin
The success of penicillin
stimulated Selman Waksman, a
soil microbiologist at Rutgers
University in New Jersey, in
1940 to examine the collection
of actinomycete bacteria that
he had assembled over thirty
years for antibiotic production.
Soon after, in1943, Waksman’s
group discovers streptomycin, a
natural product made by the
bacteria Streptomyces griseus.
By 1947 streptomycin –
commercialised by the
American pharmaceutical
company Merck and Co., who
had supported Waksman’s
research- proves to be
wonderfully successful against
tuberculosis, a major killer
disease worldwide for which
there has been no effective drug
treatment. Streptomycin is also
effective against several other
diseases and its discovery is
followed by the finding of many
further antibacterial and
antifungal drugs. The
actinomycetes shoot to fame
from relative obscurity and
many actinomycete products
are discovered in the 1950s and
1960s in a period afterwards
regarded as the ‘Golden Age’ of
antibiotic discovery.
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