From birth to christening

A brief history of comparative studies of nucleic acids for systematic purposes is given. These studies were initiated by a group of Moscow State University scientists headed by A. N. Belozersky. Based mostly on comparative DNA studies, some main dogmas of a new branch of systematics were gradually developed. In Russia, this new branch of systematics is called "genosystematics". Some of the main results obtained by genosystematics since its birth (1957) and up to its "christening" (1974) are described.