The Year 1977

Voyager 2 spacecraft is launched. In the future, it would fly by: Jupiter in 1979 Saturn in 1981 Uranus in 1986 Neptune in 1989 and on into interstellar space ... First Star Wars movie released.

Richard Roberts, and independently Phillip Sharp, show that adenovirus genes are interspersed with non-coding segments that do not specify protein structure (introns). (Nobel Prize, 1993). The discovery of gene splicing in adenovirus was subsequently found to apply to cellular genes - a fundamental principle.

Frederick Sanger and colleagues determine the complete sequence of all 5,375 nucleotides of the bacteriophage fX174 genome. (Nobel Prize, 1980) This was the first complete genome sequence of any organism to be determined.

Last naturally occurring outbreak of smallpox occurs in Somalia on 26th October 1977.

Hepatitis delta antigen is recognised.