This review compiles the pioneers of biological sciences who have been born and educated on the territories, which has got political independence as Poland state in 1918. Their work and passing knowledge to the next generations had a great impact not only on the progress in science but also on a newly formed Polish society. Many of these contributions laid foundations for chemistry, physics, biochemistry, genetics and other biological sciences.

This year we are celebrating 150 anniversary of the discovery of DNA by Friedrich Miescher. His finding initiated a series of discoveries that allowed to depicts life's most famous molecule with novel features with considerable biological interest. In this article we recall the biggest mile stones of 150-year history of DNA and present the context and meaning of several key observations that have brought us closer to understanding DNA. 150 years ago, people had no idea that DNA existed, and they certainly hadn’t heard of DNA structure and sequencing. We now know that DNA is a dynamic, tortuous coil, constantly shuffling and unwinding. Today DNA is all around us, in a physical sense and in a cultural sense. It is really part of our culture. We will discuss also the little known facts, often overlooked in similar discussions. We will focus particularly on Professor Richard Altmann's from Iława, whose contribution to knowledge about nucleic acids is significant, although not well recognized so far.