| 1865 |
Cornell is established and becomes the land-grant
university of New York |
| 1868 |
Professor James Law begins veterinary instruction at Cornell.
Law introduced rigor and science to issues of animal and public health in the United
States, and is regarded as one of the most influential leaders in veterinary medicine. |
| 1876 |
College of Veterinary Medicine alumnus Daniel Salmon discovers
the bacterium Salmonella. Salmon and alumna Florence Kimball 1910 are the first man
and woman to receive their degrees in veterinary medicine from an American university. |
| 1888 |
Liberty Hyde Bailey is recruited as professor of horticulture.
He greatly expands the life sciences at Cornell |
| 1894 |
Liberty Professor James Law presides over the first state-supported
statutory unit (i.e. veterinary medicine) on the Cornell campus. |
| 1904 |
New York State College of Agriculture is established at Cornell |
| 1908 |
Laboratory of Plant Breeding is established with 13 graduate
students and $600 for research |
| 1909 |
Harry H. Love lays the foundations of biometry, a field
that encompasses a wide variety of applications of statistics to the
biological sciences |
| 1914 |
Rollins A. Emerson, who provided evidence that plant yield,
vigor, and quality are controlled by specific genes, becomes head of Cornell’s
Department of Plant Breeding |
| 1916 |
Establishment of the first serum-free laboratory in the
U.S. for the production of hog cholera vaccine |
| 1929 |
Barbara McClintock and colleagues complete studies of the ten
chromosomes comprising maize and make advances in maize cytogenetics (study of the
chromosomes and their genetic content and expressions) |
| 1935 |
Cornell team publishes the 10 linkage maps of corn chromosomes |
| 1939 |
G. W. Salisbury pioneers research in animal breeding and artificial insemination |
| 1940s |
Plant breeders Henry Munger, Neal Jensen, Royse Murphy, and
Rollins Adams Emerson release new and improved strains of field and vegetable crops |
| 1946 |
James B. Sumner, professor of biochemistry and nutrition,
wins Nobel Prize in chemistry for showing that enzymes are proteins |
| 1950 |
Geneticist Adrian Srb introduces biochemical genetics to Cornell.
Srb and geneticist Ray Owen publish General Genetics, a widely used basic text |
| 1950s |
Animal scientists Robert Foote and R.W. Bratton
conduct pioneering work that boosts bull semen preservation and fertility |
| 1951 |
College of Veterinary Medicine develops vaccine for canine infectious hepatitis |
| 1954 |
Animal scientist C. R. Henderson revolutionizes dairy cattle
breeding with new techniques and launches New York as the world leader in applied
genetics through artificial insemination for animal breeding |
| 1955 |
Vincent du Vigneaud wins the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his
work on biochemically important sulphur compounds, especially for the first
synthesis of a polypeptide hormone |
| 1956 |
College of Veterinary Medicine develops vaccine for distemper |
| 1958 |
Geneticist Margaret Emmerling is first woman to join Cornell
genetics/plant breeding faculty; geneticist Bruce Wallace introduces population and
evolutionary genetics to Cornell |
|
Cornell alumnus and former agriculture professor George W. Beadle
co-wins the Nobel Prize in physiology for his one gene-one enzyme work with bread mold
that began at Cornell 30 years earlier |
|
Lemuel Dary Wright, a Cornell professor of biochemistry and
nutrition, receives the Borden Award from the American Institute of Nutrition
for his studies in microbiological chemistry. Wright is considered a major
figure in the fields of microbiology and nutritional biochemistry whose work
contributed significantly to our present knowledge of vitamins and their
metabolic roles |
| 1960s |
Charles R. Henderson develops new methods (e.g., best linear
unbiased prediction) of predicting an animal’s genetic ability |
| 1964 |
The Division of Biological Sciences is established
|
| 1966 |
The Empire Apple is introduced by the NYS Agricultural Experiment
Station at Geneva |
| 1968 |
Robert William Holley, former Cornell professor of biochemistry,
wins Nobel Prize in medicine for deciphering the structure of transfer RNA, an
important discovery for molecular genetics |
|
Hans Muxfeldt, a professor in the Department of Chemistry, completes
the first total synthesis of terramycin – an important antibiotic |
| 1970s |
Thomas Eisner and Jerrold Meinwald are principal movers in shaping
the internationally recognized field of chemical ecology at Cornell. Eisner and Meinwald are
acclaimed as the “fathers of chemical ecology,” the study of the role chemicals play in
the interactions of living things |
| 1978 |
Cornell Nanofabrication Facility (formerly the National Research and
Resource Facility for Submicron Structures) is established as one of five
national, interdisciplinary research centers for manufacturing nanodevices |
| |
Development of the Coggins test for equine
infectious anemia virus |
| 1981 |
Cornell High-Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS), one of the world's
leading centers for X-ray research in biology and materials science, is established |
| 1983 |
Barbara McClintock becomes the first woman to win the Nobel
Prize in physiology or medicine for work she started at Cornell 30 years earlier |
|
Cornell Biotechnology Program is established
|
|
Center for Advanced Technology in Biotechnology established to
support research and development programs in the biological and physical sciences for
Cornell faculty in partnership with New York companies. |
| 1984 |
Katharine Payne, acoustic biologist in the Bioacoustical
Research Program, discovers that elephants emit low frequency sounds below
human hearing levels; she publishes Silent Thunder: In the Presence
of Elephants in 1988 |
| 1986 |
The gene gun and the biolistics process are invented by plant scientist
John Sanford, working with engineer Edward D. Wolf and machinist Nelson Allen, to transfer
DNA into plant and animal cells |
| 1989 |
Harold Scheraga, the Todd Professor of Chemistry, elucidates
the structure of a blood-clotting protein, leading to an understanding of the genetic
bleeding disorder dysfibrogenemia |
| 1990s |
|
| 1993 |
Steve Tanksley, the Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Plant
Breeding, is the first to use map-based cloning, successfully locating and
transferring disease-resistance genes to tomatoes |
| 1994 |
College of Veterinary Medicine develops vaccine for Lyme disease |
| 1995 |
Horticulture science professor Norm Weeden develops the “matrix mill,”
a device for quickly grinding plant or animal tissue so that DNA is separated
from the tissue |
| 1997 |
The Cornell Genomics Initiative is launched, a blueprint to
make the university a world leader in applying the results of DNA
sequencing |
| |
College of Veterinary Medicine contributes to the first framework
reference map of the canine genome |
|
The cross-disciplinary Genomics Task Force is appointed and
charged with developing a campus-wide genomics initiative |
| 1998 |
The USDA-funded Genome Database Projects is established at
Department of Plant Breeding to organize molecular and agricultural information
about rice, small grains, and solanaceous crops for global computer access |
|
Food science professor Carl Batt creates biosensors built
on nanofabrication and biology technologies that revolutionized bacteria detection
in food, water, and environment |
|
The Department of Chemistry changes its name to the Department of
Chemistry and Chemical Biology in recognition of the increasingly important link between
the previously separate disciplines of chemistry and biology, and the rapidly developing
opportunities for chemists to contribute to solving problems in the life sciences |
| 1999 |
Nanobiotechnology Center (NBTC), a national center, is established at
Cornell with grant from National Science Foundation (NSF) and the State of New York. |
|
USDA establishes the Center for Bioinformatics and Comparative
Genomics at Cornell |
|
The Institute for Biotechnology and Life Science Technologies, the
successor to the Cornell Biotechnology Program established in 1983, is established to
promote education, training, and research in advanced technologies and modern biotechnology
as well as applications to societal needs. The Institute is one of 15 Centers for
Advanced Technology sponsored by the New York State Office of Science, Technology,
and Academic Research |
| 2000 |
Cornell hosts two-day conference on Genomics Futures:
Ethical Challenges, Social Choices and the University
|
|
Stephen Kresovich, professor of plant breeding and director
of the Institute for Genomic Diversity at Cornell, is named director of the
university's Institute for Biotechnology and Life Science Technologies |
|
|
|
Interdisciplinary Center for Materials Research, which involves nearly
100 Cornell faculty from nine academic departments, receives a 5-year grant from NSF
to provide engineering and physical sciences support to advance biology departments |
|
Private funding establishes a collaborative program in basic
chemical biology research among Cornell (Ithaca and Weill Medical College campuses),
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and The Rockefeller University |
|
Construction begins on Duffield Hall, a $60 million, high-tech
research facility located on the Engineering Quad. Duffield will help keep Cornell on
the leading edge of research and teaching in nanoscience and materials
characterization |
| 2001 |
Cornell Genomics Initiative enters Phase II expansion for
more resources and personnel, including a new Life Sciences Technology Building |
| |
Professor of veterinary medicine Gustavo Aguirre and a team
of scientists in the Baker Institute of Animal Health develop and apply the first
successful gene therapy to restore vision in blind dogs; this therapy has
great implications for curing certain types of human blindness |
|
Biological engineering professor Carlo D.Montemagno and
his team of nanobiotechnologists successfully build and pilot-test the first
biomolecular motors with tiny metal propellers |
|
Core Transgenic Mouse Facility, housed in the College
of Veterinary Medicine, opens |
| |
First graduate students matriculate in the Tri-Institutional Training Program
in Chemical Biology, a collaboration between Cornell in Ithaca and Weill Cornell
Medical College, Rockefeller University, and the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer
Center in New York City |
| 2002 |
Cornell announces New Life Sciences Initiative, a University-wide
program that will integrate life sciences with physical, engineering, and computational
sciences; involve hundreds of faculty, eight colleges, and 60 departments; support at
least 50 new faculty hires in five years; and create up to 100 new graduate
fellowships. The initiative is the largest single scientific effort in the history of
Cornell and will involve investments exceeding $500 million |
|
College of Veterinary Medicine’s Animal Health Diagnostic Laboratory
designated as one of the nation’s regional laboratories for biosecurity |
| |
Michael Shuler, the Samuel B. Eckert Professor of Chemical
Engineering, is named director of the cross-campus program in biomedical engineering
(BME), which will integrate the life sciences into undergraduate and graduate
engineering education |
| |
New York State awards $25 million toward construction of
Cornell’s proposed Life Sciences Technology Building, the largest single building
project in the university’s history |
| |
National Cancer Institute awards Cornell $986,000 grant to
establish a Recombinant Protein Expression Laboratory to produce proteins for
cancer research |
| |
A new cancer-drug facility designed to make therapeutic cancer
drugs for clinical trials opens in November through a partnership between the
Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in New York City and Cornell. |
| |
Vet College’s Baker Institute for Animal Health dedicates its new 3-story
laboratory |
| 2003 |
Cornell hosts first Japan-U.S. nanotechnology symposium |
| |
Researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College discover a new
source of neural stem cells in the adult human brain |
| |
Cornell trustees approve a four-year plan to complete the
Life Sciences Technology Building |
| |
Weill Cornell surgeons perform the first-ever in vivo gene
therapy for Parkinson’s disease |
| |
A $6.6 million contract with the National Institutes of
Health (NIH) will establish the Zoonoses Research Unit at the colleges of
Veterinary Medicine and Agriculture and Life Sciences to study food- and
water-borne diseases common to animals and humans |
| |
The U.S. Department of Energy awards Cornell $2.25 million to
establish the Cornell Fuel Cell Institute to kick-start the development of fuel
cells that would be both efficient and cheap to produce |
| |
The Cornell Nanoscale Science and Technology Facility moves
to the new Lester B. Knight Laboratory in Duffield Hall. |
| 2004 |
Architect Richard Meier ’56 unveils his design for the Life
Sciences Technology Building |
| |
Groundbreaking in the Middle East for the Bridging the Rift
Center, a research and education partnership among Cornell, Stanford, Israel,
and Jordan. BTR will house the Library of Life, the world's first databank of
information about all living systems. |
| |
The National Science Foundation designates Cornell to lead a
13-member consortium called the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network,
the world's largest and most accessible nanoscale laboratory |
| |
Physicians and scientists at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill
Cornell Medical Center successfully use preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD)
for retinoblastoma, resulting in the world's first babies born free of the
deadly inherited eye cancer |
| |
Steve Tanksley, the Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Plant
Breeding and chair of the Cornell Genomics Initiative Task Force, is awarded the
Wolf Foundation Prize for "innovative development of hybrid rice"
and related genetic discoveries |
| |
New master of engineering degree in biomedical engineering
is approved by the New York State Department of Education |
