Branch of biology that deals with the functioning of living organisms, as opposed to anatomy, which studies their structures.
| 1684 | Netherlands | Dutch microscopist Anton van Leeuwenhoek first describes red blood cells accurately. |
| 1828 | Estonia | Estonian embryologist Karl von Baer describes the notochord, the development of the neural folds into the nervous system, and the main brain vesicles in Über die Entwicklungsgeschichte der Thiere/On the Development of Animals. In doing so he establishes the science of comparative embryology. |
| 1833 | USA | The US army surgeon William Beaumont publishes Experiments and Observations on the Gastric Juice and the Physiology of Digestion – the first detailed book on human digestion. |
| 1855 | France | The French physiologist Claude Bernard discovers that ductless glands produce hormones, which he calls ‘internal secretions’. |
| 1855 | Germany | The German biologist Rudolf Virchow discovers that ‘every cell is derived from a cell’ – the principle of cell division. |
| 1865 | France | French physiologist Claude Bernard develops the concept of homeostasis when he notes that ‘all the vital mechanisms, varied as they are, have only one object: that of preserving constant the conditions of life’. |
| 1874 | Germany | The German psychologist Wilhelm Wundt publishes Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie/Principles of Physiological Psychology. |
| 1883 | Germany | German physiologist Paul Ehrlich publishes ‘The Requirement of the Organism for Oxygen’, in which he shows that different tissues consume oxygen at different rates and that the rate of consumption can be used to measure biological activity. |
| 1904 | | Spanish physiologist Santiago Ramón y Cajal demonstrates that the neuron is the basis of the nervous system. |
| 1947 | England | English physiologists Alan Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley insert microelectrodes into the giant nerve fibres of the squid Loligo forbesi to discover the chemical and electrical properties of the transmission of nerve impulses. |
| 11 January 2001 | USA | Scientists in the USA announce that they have created the world's first genetically modified monkey, a baby rhesus called ANDi. The achievement could hasten the development of new treatments for a range of human diseases. |
| 25 November 2001 | USA | Advanced Cell Technology, a US biotechnology company based in Massachusetts, announces that it has successfully created a human embryo through cloning, for the purpose of developing stem cells. |
| 16 June 2003 | England | Labelled the UK's first ‘designer baby’, James Whitaker is born by Caesarean section in Sheffield, England, the first product of genetic-matching IVF treatment to be born in Britain. The procedure, performed in the USA after the UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority refused to sanction it in August 2002, gives the parents hope of saving their other son from a rare form of anaemia. |
| 19 May 2004 | England | The world's first stem-cell bank opens in Hertfordshire, England, based at the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control. Stem cell research, although controversial, has the potential to accelerate the development of regenerative medicine. |
| 21 July 2004 | UK | In a significant change of policy towards ‘designer babies’, the UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority approves tissue-matching tests on embryos for the purposes of saving the life of a sick older brother or sister. |
| 20 May 2005 | UK | Scientists at Newcastle University report that they have successfully cloned a human embryo as part of their stem cell research into new treatments for diabetes, having been granted a licence by the UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority in August 2004. Pro-life groups criticize such work as unethical. |
| 4 April 2006 | USA | Successful bladder transplants into seven young patients, with organs engineered using live tissue in the laboratory, are announced by a team of US research scientists in Boston. The medical breakthrough could herald the regeneration of hearts and other human organs in the future. |
| 5 July 2006 | UK | Sixty-two-year-old Patricia Rashbrook becomes Britain's oldest mother as she gives birth to a son by Caesarean section after having fertility treatment. |
