We tell the story of the ‘Philadelphia chromosome’ (a key cause of chronic myeloid leukaemia), how it was discovered and how it’s discovery influenced the search for a cure.
We explore the life and work of Hilde Mangold, whose work in developmental genetics led to the discovery of the Spemann-Mangold organiser.
We explore the life of Salome Gluecksohn, a woman and a Jew in early 20th century Germany whose experiments with mice sparked a new field in science: developmental genetics.
We discover how a chance encounter with some white-gloved mice led to new insights into heredity, through transgenerational epigenetic inheritance.
A chance encounter between a seamstress and a scientist starts a 25-year long crusade to understand the nature of hereditary cancer.
Maud Slye was one of the first people to investigate how cancer susceptibility could be inherited, with the help of 150,000 mice.
The first case solved by genetic fingerprinting wasn't a murder or a paternity suit, but an immigration dispute.
At 9.05am on the morning of 10th September 1984, Alec Jeffreys developed the X-ray film that revealed the first genetic fingerprint - a discovery that changed the world.
The brutal murders of Dawn Ashworth and Lynda Mann made headlines in the 80s, as did the role of DNA fingerprinting in clearing an innocent man and catching the true killer
How bird poop fuelled an agricultural revolution and led to the discovery of the first nucleotide: guanine.
The hunt for the building blocks of life involved soiled bandages, a hundred kilos of cow pancreas and a lot of heartache.
There are far more than four letters in the genetic alphabet. Starting with experiments at a nuclear research facility in the 1940s, we now know of more than 150 modified nucleotides, hugely extending the biological information inside cells.
Human and fish embryos share striking similarities thanks to our shared evolutionary origins - it’s time to meet Tiktaalik, the ancient ancestor of your inner fish.
German zoologist Ernst Haeckel had a flair for illustration, creating incredibly detailed and widely shared scientific images. But do his famous embryo drawings really show the true picture of early development?
The iconic finches collected from the Galapagos Islands by Charles Darwin are widely thought to be the inspiration for his theory of evolution by natural selection. But while it’s a nice story, it’s not quite true…
The March of Progress is probably one of the most widely recognised scientific images and an instant visual short-hand for evolutionary progress. But how accurate is it?
Every day, species are being snuffed out. One obvious solution to extinction is to invest in conservation. But what about bringing back the species that have already gone?
Flip open any biology textbook and you’ll see a typical ‘tree of life’ showing the relationships between species. But where did these iconic representations come from? And how do scientists decide what makes a species anyway?
The diversity and success of life on this planet may be the result of cells buddying up and moving in together, combining their resources to create new organisms with advantageous new skills.
Cloning took a step from the realms of sci-fi towards reality in 1996, with the birth of Dolly the Sheep, the first live-born adult mammal clone.
