- 1978 The laboratory of Drs. Nicholas Gillham and John Boynton at Duke University acquired early, fundamental Chlamydomonas mutants from the labs of R.P. Levine at Harvard and Ebersold at UCLA
- 1979 With Dr. Elizabeth Harris as director of the project, NSF Genetic Biology funded a 4.5 year research grant for the Chlamydomonas Genetics Center at Duke and support was renewed for a five year period in 1983
- 1988 Under the program for Living Stock Collections, support was renewed for three additional five year periods
- 2000 Gillham and Boynton closed their laboratory and the Center continued under the direction of Dr. Harris
- June 2004 Drs. Lefebvre and Silflow at the University of Minnesota assumed responsibility for maintenance and distribution of the culture collection, with Dr. Harris continuing to direct the project and maintain the web site and database
- November 2005 Matt Laudon was hired as curator of the new project, now named the Chlamydomonas Resource Center
- January 2012 Dr. Harris officially retires from the Chlamy Center