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Robert Hooke discovers the cell
Using the newly invented compound microscope, Hooke studies thin cuttings of cork. He then discovers that there are empty spaces surrounded by a rigid wall and calls it a plant cell. -
Smallpox Vaccine
Edward Jenner is the first to introduce the smallpox vaccine in England. The first successful vaccination was administered to a child. -
Period: to
Classical Biotechnology
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Discovery of Proteins By Jons Jakob Berzelius
Berzelius was responsible for creating famous modern chemical names including that of the protein. -
Gregor Mendel
Mendel is often referred to as the father of genetics. His experiment dealt with selective cross-breeding of pea plants over multiple generations. Back then, many people believed that traits were just mixed together in "blending" process. However, his experiment showed that traits were not just randomly blended togehter in offspring. Mendel discovered that traits were controlled by factors called genes. -
Idaho Potato
Luther Burbank was an agricultural inventor who developed and modified over 800 strains and varieties of plants. Burbank wanted to create a potato that would combat the potato blight in Ireland. He took 23 seedlings from an Early Rose potato and planted all 23. All of the seedlings produced tubers but one of them produced significantly more. Burbank marketed this potato to farmers in Ireland because it was stronger than other potato breeds and blight-resistant. He later sold the right to the pot -
Crossbreeding of Cotton
Breeders and farmers start to mate corn with certain traits with others. This produced many varieties of corn with superior qualities. -
Pasteurization
Louis Pasteur discovers a process called pasteurization, in which by heating milk or beer it would kill bacteria and prevent the product from spoiling. -
Inherited Diseases
Archibald Garrod studies Mendelian inheritance and the connection between certain diseases and the way they are passed down through the family. Garrod connected the diseases, specifically alkaptonuria to an autosomal recessive gene pattern. -
The Term Biotechnology Is Coined
The term biotechnology is first used by Karl Ereky, a hungarian agricultural engineer. -
BCG Vaccine
After more than 20 years of research, they attempted the vaccine on a human being. The first patient was an infant whose mother had died from Tuberculosis after giving birth a few days before. Calmette, the person who created the vaccine, assisted by Benjamin Weill-Halle and Raymond Turpin administered the vaccine to more than 650 infants with almost no complications. -
Insulin Discovered
Dr. Frederick Banting and his assistant Charles Best discovered insulin as a method of treating diabetes. They get insulin from a dog’s pancreas but there were complications due to the fact that it caused allergic reactions. -
Penicillin Discovered
Sir Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin as a way to combat bacteria and bacterial infections. Antibiotics inhibit or combat competing microbes. -
DNA and Heredity Linked
Avery, McLeod, and McCarty prove that DNA is the hereditary material in cells. This finally linked the building blocks of humanity with the concept that they are passed down from parent to offspring. -
Period: to
Modern Biotechnology
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DNA Double Helix
James Watson and Francis Crick, with the aid of an X-ray diffraction photograph taken by Rosalind Franklin help to identify the characteristic structure of DNA. They discover that it consists of two-strands connected by nucleotide bases, forming a double helix. -
DNA Polymerase Discovered
American biochemists Arthur Kornberg discovered DNA polymerase which led to the discovery of how DNA replicates. He won a Nobel Prize for his work. -
Stem Cells Discovered
James Till and Ernest McCullogh set up the framework for the idea of stem cells, affecting how they are studied and the possible uses for them are today.
Stem Cells are undifferentiated cells from which different cells form such as blood cells or skin cells. There are two types, adult stem cells and embryonic stem cells. The latter are derived from a 4 or 5 day old embryo in the blastocyst development stage, hence the production of stem cells is highly controversial. -
Recombinant DNA
Stanley Cohen and Herbert Boyer develop recombinant DNA, where genes from one organism are spliced into another. This is often considered to be the birth of modern biotechnology. -
Production of Human Insulin
The biotech company called Genentech manufactured the first synthetic insulin. They inserted the gene for human insulin into bacterial DNA. Since bacteria reproduce at a quicker rate, greater quantities of insulin could be produced at faster rates. The insulin could then aid someone with type 1 diabetes. -
Disease Gene Mapping
The first disease (Huntington’) is mapped with specific DNA markers characteristic to the disease. -
Polymerase Chain Reaction
Kary Mullis discovers PCR, or Polymerase Chain Reaction which takes one strand of DNA and makes millions of copies. Helps speed up the pace of genetic research because now scientists can make millions of copies of the same strand of DNA. -
HUGO
HUGO or the Human Genome Organization is created, helping to sponsor international collaboration. -
Chymosin
The first genetically engineered food product goes on the market, Chymosin which is used in cheese making. Chymosin was made by splicing the rennin gene into a fungus to increase productivity. -
Mammal Is Cloned For the First Time
Scientists at Roslin Institute in Scotland use an adult cell from a sheep to create a genetically identica organism, Dolly. This was a major story because cloning an animal from an adult cell is very difficult compared to cloning from an embryonic cell. -
Herceptin
Herceptin is approved by the FDA. This pharmacogenomic drug is used to help breast cancer patients whose cancer overexpresses the HER2 receptor. -
Virus-Resistant Sweet Potato
Kenya produces its first biotech crop: a viruse-resistant sweet potato. However, the project ended up failing and was ironically found susceptible to viral attack. -
Finalization of Human Genome Project
The Human Genome Project was an international science project with goals to sequence all the chemical base pairs of human DNA and map the genes of the human genome. It was one of the greatest international collaborations that opened a new field. -
Biotech Crops
UN Food and Agriculture Organization chooses to support biotech crops. They claim that biotechnology is a useful tool to traditional farming methods and that it can aid poor farmers and consumers in other nations. -
Bioethanol Development
The Energy Policy Act is passed and signed to become a law. This act authorized numerous projects contributing to bioethanol development. -
Glowing Cats
Scientists in South Korea take skin cells from a cat and insert the fluorescent gene. They then transplant the modified cells into eggs. The scientists claim that the cats could aid in developing cures for genetic diseases. -
Cheese-Making
Cheese making is common in Europe as early as 879 AD in Italy and 170 AD in France. However, cheese-making dates back to as far as 4000 BC, when the Chinese used rennin from a cow stomach to make curds and whey. -
Period: to
Ancient Biotechnology
