Cell Theory Timeline

Hans & Zacharias Janssen

1590

Being some of the most early scientist who made significant advancements in cell theory, Hans and Zacharias Janssen both invented the compound optical microscope. This microsope made it very convenient to observe and study cells and was an extrmely large step for cell theory. The magnification of these microscope in that time made the object studied around 20 to 30 times the size of its normal size.

H&ZJ

Matthias Schleiden

1838

Matthias Schleiden created some statements that we still use as the basis for biology today. He declared that cells were the building blocks of plants and tissues in animals. His work was mainly to prove that both plant and animal cells were very similar in nature. He also began studying the function of certain cells in plants.

MS

Robert Hooke

1665

RH

Robert Brown

1831

"Cells come from prexisting cells"

"Discovery of the Nucleus"

"Pioneer of use of microscope in botany"

"Brownian Motion"

RB

"Contributed to taxonomy"

Theodor Schwann

1810

TS

Theodor Schwann is known as the "Father of Cell Theory." The Cell Theory contains three different parts. 1. All organisms are made of cells. 2. Cells are basic units of life. 3. All cells come from other cells. Schwann is not totally credited with the creation of Cell Theory as Schleiden also engaged in research similar to Schwann's.

Camillo Golgi

1888

CG

Camillo Golgi made some very important discoveries in his time working from the 1870s to 1900s. Golgi's most important finding was that the nervous system could be stained with silver nitrate, allowing for more in-depth understanding of how the nervous system was structured. This staining of a cell allowed for Golgi to find the Golgi Apparatus, a key subcellular structure in the cell where protein transport takes place.

Rudolf Virchow

1855

RV

Rudolf Virchow, unlike the other scientists in this timeline, mainly focused on the effect of viruses and diseases and the impact they had on cells. He described the pathological processes of disease and how it affects an individual cell or a group of cells. He also was important to cell theory because he made contributions to the idea that all cells came from other cells.

James Thomson

1998

James Thomson was an important contributor to the cell theory and he one of the most recent people to provide new information about cells. The research that won him the Nobel Prize in 1998 was the ability to isolate human embryonic cells. He initially was successful with primate embryonic cells until moving to human cells. The reason we want to be able to isolate stem cells is so we can analyze the epigenetic effects as well as see RNA expression.

JT

Albert Van Kolliker

1857

In 1857, Albert Van Kolliker noticed something unusual about the human tissue cells he was studying. He noticed granules on each cells and wondered what it is. At the time he didn;t know he was looking at Mitochondria "The Powerhouse of the Cell." The subcellular structure was later named Mitochondria when Albert Van Kolliker passed away.

AVK

Francesco Redi

1668

FR

James Dewey Watson

1953

JdW

The American molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist James D. Watson made an extremely important foundational finding in 1953. He and Francis Crick along with the findings made before by Rosalind Franklin, discovered that the structure of DNA is the building blocks of all Earth. He saw that the essential DNA components must be linked in definite pairs.

Rosalind Franklin

1953

RF

The British Scientist Rosalind Franklin was a very impactful chemist and biologist who made significant advancements in cell theory. Specifically, in 1953 with her work in X-ray patterns for DNA molecules, she laid the foundation for future scientists in James Watson and Francis Crick for the suggestion that the structure of DNA is a double-helix polymer, a spiral consisting of two DNA strands wound around each other. This founding was a significant advancement for biology and created many more important discoveries down the road that other biologists made in the future.

Yoshinori Ohsumi

1992

YO

The Japanese Cell Biologist and Nobel Prize winner Yoshinori Ohsumi studied and made lots of discoveries in autophagy (your body's process of reusing old and damaged cell parts). Specifically his discovery in 1992 was an absolute break-through where had a method to identify and characterize key genes involved in this process of the experiment he created with how authopagy exists in yeast cells

Antoine Van Leeuwenhoek

1674

AvL

Date of Scientific Discovery: 1674

Scientific Discovery Information: In 1674, Antoine Van Leeuwenhoek discovered the first example of living cells in algae in water. He pioneered the rest of cell theory to come. He was only able to observe free living cells, though, after HE had made a compound microscope. Leeuwenhoek was one of the most important biologists to ever live as he introduced an entire new study of cells.

Henri Dutrochet

1832

From the 1820s to the 1840s, the French physician Henri Dutrochet made some very important discoveries about cell theory. He has been credited to discovering cell biology and cells in plants as well as the discovery of the process osmosis. Specifically in 1832, he showed how only cells containing chlorophyll can fix carbon and thus transform light energy into chemical energy.

HD