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First recorded description of living cells by Robert Hooke
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Antonie van Leeuwenhoek discovers and describes bacteria and protozoa.
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Edward Jenner uses first viral vaccine to inoculate a child from smallpox.
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The first recorded use of the word biology.
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Henri Dutrochet discovers that tissues are composed of living cells.
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Protein discovered, named and recorded by Gerardus Johannes Mulder and Jöns Jacob Berzelius.
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Louis Pasteur discovers the bacterial origin of fermentation.
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Gregor Mendel discovers the laws of inheritance.
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Antonin Prandtl invents first centrifuge to separate cream from milk.
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Friedrich Miescher identifies DNA in the sperm of a trout.
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Ernst Hoppe-Seyler discovers invertase, which is still used for making artificial sweeteners.
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Robert Koch develops a technique for staining bacteria for identification.
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Walther Flemming discovers chromatin leading to the discovery of chromosomes.
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Louis Pasteur develops vaccines against bacteria that cause cholera and anthrax in chickens.
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Louis Pasteur and Emile Roux develop the first rabies vaccine and use it on Joseph Meister.
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Károly Ereky, a Hungarian agricultural engineer, first uses the word biotechnology.
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Alexander Fleming notices that a certain mould could stop the duplication of bacteria, leading to the first antibiotic: penicillin.
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L.V. Radushkevich and V.M. Lukyanovich publish clear images of 50 nanometer diameter tubes made of carbon, in the Soviet Journal of Physical Chemistry.
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James D. Watson and Francis Crick describe the structure of DNA.
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The term bionics is coined by Jack E. Steele.
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The first commercial myoelectric arm is developed by the Central Prosthetic Research Institute of the USSR, and distributed by the Hangar Limb Factory of the UK.
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Stanley Norman Cohen and Herbert Boyer perform the first successful recombinant DNA experiment, using bacterial genes.
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The DNA composition of chimpanzees and gorillas is discovered to be 99% similar to that of humans.
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Scientist invent the first biocement for industrial applications.
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Method for producing monoclonal antibodies developed by Köhler and César Milstein.
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North Carolina scientists Clyde Hutchison and Marshall Edgell show it is possible to introduce specific mutations at specific sites in a DNA molecule.
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The U.S. patent for gene cloning is awarded to Cohen and Boyer
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The Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) technique is conceived.
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British scientists, led by Ian Wilmut from the Roslin Institute, report cloning Dolly the sheep using DNA from two adult sheep cells.
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Rice becomes the first crop to have its genome decoded.
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Thirty-one-year-old Zac Vawter successfully uses a nervous system-controlled bionic leg to climb the Chicago Willis Tower.