Bonus: Avery–MacLeod–McCarty experiment
The Avery-MacLeod-McCarty experiment of 1944 revealed that DNA is the substance that causes bacterial transformation, the genetic alteration of a cell as a result of the uptake of genetic material from outside the cell. The experiment was the culmination of research performed at New York’s Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research.
Previously, it was believed that proteins carried genetic information, yet this experiment proved that DNA was the hereditary material of bacteria. The three researchers used two strains of pneumococcus used in Frederick Griffith’s 1928 experiment. Yet, the scientific community was reluctant to believe that DNA served as genetic material until the 1953 Hershey and Chase experiment.