1989
1989 – 1997
■ Lap Chee Tsui, Francis Collins and Jack Riordan identify the cystic fibrosis gene, which has long-term implications for
understanding this disease.
■ APS launches Advances in Physiology Education.
■A
JP – Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology becomes a new section in the American
Journal of Physiology.
■R
oger Tsien and colleagues develop the calcium indicators Fura-2 and Indo-1.
■ T he Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to J. Michael Bishop and Harold E.
Varmus “for their discovery of the cellular origin of retroviral oncogenes.”
■ T ens of thousands of Chinese students take over Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in rally for democracy.
■A
fter 28 years, Berlin Wall is open to West.
■C
zech Parliament ends Communists’ dominant role.
■R
omanian uprising overthrows Communist government.
■R
uptured tanker Exxon Valdez leaks 11 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound.
■ F irst World Wide Web server and browser developed by Tim Berners-Lee (England) while working at CERN.
ien
1990
Roger Ts
■ T he Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Joseph
E. Murray and E. Donnall Thomas “for their discoveries concerning
organ and cell transplantation in the treatment of human disease.”
1991
■ Iraqi troops invade Kuwait, setting off the Persian Gulf War.
■ The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Erwin
Neher and Bert Sakmann “for their discoveries concerning the
function of single ion channels in cells.”
Bert Sak
1994
1993
1992
mann
■ T he Hubble Space Telescope is launched.
■P
resident George H. W. Bush signs the Clean Air Act, mandating a variety
of pollution-reducing changes in the automobile and fuel industries.
■ Gopher, the first user-friendly internet interface, is created at the University of Minnesota.
■ Soviet Union breaks up after President Mikhail Gorbachev’s resignation.
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ach
b
r
o
G
l
i
a
ikh
M
Erwin Ne
her
■ The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Edmond H. Fischer and Edwin G. Krebs “for their
discoveries concerning reversible protein phosphorylation as a biological regulatory mechanism.”
■G
regg Semenza and G. Wang identify the first member of the hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) family of transcription
factors, a DNA binding complex that was first defined as a regulator of erythropoietin gene (EPO) expression.
■ Yugoslav Federation breaks up.
■ The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Richard J. Roberts and Phillip A. Sharp “for their
discoveries of split genes.”
■ Edward M Brown and colleagues clone and characterize the calcium sensing receptor.
■ F ive arrested for the bombing of World Trade Center in New York.
■M
osaic is developed by Marc Andreeson at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and it
becomes the dominant navigating system for the World Wide Web.
■ APS launches APStracts, an online publication of accepted manuscripts using Gopher technology.
■ T he Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Alfred G. Gilman and Martin
Rodbell “for their discovery of G-proteins and the role of these proteins in signal
transduction in cells.”
■ J ohn Allen Clements receives the Albert Lasker Prize for his work defining and
describing the role of pulmonary surfactant, and for developing a life-saving artificial
surfactant for use in premature infants.
■S
outh Africa holds first interracial national election, electing Nelson Mandela as President.
Nelson M
andela
ents
■ J effrey Friedman discovers the hormone leptin which has important effects in regulating body weight, metabolism
and reproductive function. ■ T he Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Edward B. Lewis, Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard and Eric F.
Wieschaus “for their discoveries concerning the genetic control of early embryonic development.”
■M
ary L. Ellsworth documented that erythrocytes have a critical function in blood flow regulation and finely-tuned O2
delivery in tissues.
■S
cores killed as terrorist’s car bomb blows up block-long Oklahoma City federal building.
■ J ohn Payne and Christopher Gillen, and others clone the first two K-Cl
cotransporter (KCC) isoforms KCC1 and 2, the latter present exclusively in the
brain and required to permit hyperpolarizing GABA-mediated Cl currents in
neurons.
1996
1995
m
John Cle
Peter K
Lauf
■ T he Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Peter C. Doherty and Rolf
M. Zinkernagel “for their discoveries concerning the specificity of the cell mediated
immune defence.”
1997
■ Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded to Jens C. Skou “for the first discovery of an
ion-transporting enzyme, Na+, K+ -ATPase.”
■ T he Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Stanley B. Prusiner “for
his discovery of Prions – a new biological principle of infection.”
■M
illion Man March draws hundreds of thousands of black men to Washington, DC.
■P
eter K. Lauf and Norma C. Adragna demonstrate in a thermodynamic study that K-Cl
cotransport is electroneutral.
■S
cientists analyzing a Martian meteorite claim that it may provide evidence for the
existence of ancient life on Mars.
■D
r. Ian Wilmut and his team clone the world’s first sheep from adult cells, Dolly.
■P
rincess Diana, Princess of Wales, dies in a car accident.
■H
ong Kong returns to Chinese rule.
■U
S spacecraft begins exploration of Mars.
■ APS began publishing the Journal of Applied Physiology and the Journal of
Neurophysiology online with the assistance of HighWire Press, Stanford University.
Jens C.
Skou
Princess
Diana