ABSTRACT
While proteins were sequenced in the 1960s, rather laborious biochemical methods were used then. DNA sequencing methods were not developed until the early 1970s, and did not really gain prominence in systematics until the mid- 1980s. Specifically, two new methods – the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and Sanger sequencing – were invented. A Nobel prize in chemistry was awarded in 1980 to Walter Gilbert and Fred Sanger for developing DNA sequencing techniques. Sanger's method, called chain termination or “sequencing by synthesis”, turned out to be the method that most researchers would use from the 1990s and on. Its principles are still in use in many of the modern sequencing procedures. Another Nobel prize was awarded to Kerry Mullis for his timely invention of PCR. The details of DNA sequencing by synthesis and PCR are beyond the scope of this chapter, but we encourage students to use the internet or other textbooks to understand the biochemistry, because the two methods are at the heart of all modern biology including systematics and evolution (for a brief history of DNA sequencing see Shendure et al., 2017 and Heather and Chain, 2016)
