Margit M. K. Nass and Sylvan Nass

Using electron microscopy, mtDNA was discovered by Margit M. K. Nass and Sylvan Nass as  DNA-ase sensitive thread inside mitochondria.

 

Alan Wilson

While family trees have become increasingly popular, the first to put together a family tree with the reasoning that all human beings arose from a common ancestor was Alan Wilson. The common ancestor was referred to as “Mitochondrial Eve”. To do this, he used mtDNA polymorphisms.  Wilson and his coworkers calculated that, allowing time for the different mutations from modern populations to appear, “Mitochondrial Eve” lived in Africa around 150,000 years ago.

 

Alec Jefferys

In 1985, Alec Jefferys, an English geneticist, first discovered DNA typing or DNA fingerprinting.  Dr. Jeffreys saw that certain regions of DNA contained sequences that were repeated over and over again. Also, Jeffreys found that the number of repeated sequences in a sample could vary from person to person. He created a technique that examined the difference in length and thus created the ability to perform human identity tests.