Webit was a pleasant surprise to the scientific community when clinical research with the bacterium streptococcus pneumoniae led to the discovery of dna as the hereditary. Webseventy years ago, oswald avery and his colleagues from the rockefeller institute published the first evidence that genes are made of dna. Webseventy years ago, oswald avery and his colleagues from the rockefeller institute published the first evidence that genes are made of dna. Webthat paper, published on february 1, 1944, was the first scientific and rigorous evidence that it is dna (not proteins), the molecule that carries genetic. Webthe pursuit of the 'transforming principle in the rockefeller laboratory of oswald t. Avery was aided by several scientific instruments and resulted in the identifi cation of dna as. Webavery and members of his lab studied transformation in fits and starts over the next 15 years. In the early 1940s, they began a concerted effort to purify the. Webthere are several possible reasons: The discovery may have been ahead of its time; Webthis chapter describes the 1944 groundbreaking discovery by oswald avery, colin macleod, and maclyn mccarty that dna is the genetic material that.