Reflections

In the two decades after the founding of Neuron, we witnessed the unfolding of the "molecular biology revolution" and its culmination in the sequencing of individual genomes. Cloning of cDNAs and rapid nucleotide sequencing were invented in the early 1970s. By the mid-1980s, "cDNA-cloning" was all the rage. A new breed of "molecular neuroscientists" began cloning and sequencing transcripts encoding neuronal receptors, ion channels, and signaling enzymes. The wealth of molecular data they generated set the stage for rigorous study of neuronal cell biology.