16 molecularinheritance text

This document provides an overview of the key discoveries and evidence establishing DNA as the genetic material. It summarizes Griffith's experiments showing bacterial transformation by DNA and Hershey and Chase's experiments using bacteriophages to demonstrate that viral DNA enters host cells to direct new phage production. It also reviews Watson and Crick's proposal of the double helix structure of DNA based on Franklin's X-ray crystallography images, including their explanation of how specific base-pairing of A-T and C-G allows DNA to replicate semi-conservatively as shown by Meselson and Stahl's experiments.