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Works in Progress ·For the curious

How We Learned What Genes Are Made Of

by Kevin Blake, PhD

Published 2026-05-29 14:28:45+00:00

How did a kitchen cream separator and a few dead mice reveal what genes are made of?

0:00 / 16:14 · Narrator Vindemiatrix

Context

The story begins with dead mice and a kitchen cream separator modified to handle lethal bacteria. Writing on 29 May 2026, Kevin Blake tracks the messy path to discovering how traits are inherited. Before the 1940s, the scientific world was convinced that proteins, not DNA, held the secrets of life. Blake looks past the famous names of Watson and Crick to find the cautious researchers who proved that a supposedly stupid substance was the foundation of biology. It shows how science actually moves: through persistence, luck, and the people history often forgets.

Show notes

Oswald Avery and his team used a kitchen cream separator to isolate the chemical basis of inheritance in 1944, building on earlier experiments with bacteria and mice. Their work led to the discovery that genes are encoded in DNA, overturning the long-held belief that they were made of protein. These findings provided the foundation for modern biology and the later discovery of the double helix.

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