Biotechnology

History of Biotech

  • Cells

    Cells
    Robert Hooke coined the term "cells" and anton Van Leeuwenhoek observed the first microorganisms because of the invention of the microscope
  • Gregor Mandel

    Gregor Mandel
    Gregor Mendel, an Austrian monk working with pea plants, discovered the simple laws of inheritance of traits that allowed one to predict the outcome of crosses with certain traits.
  • Gregor Mendel

    Gregor Mendel
    Gregor Mendel, an Austrian monk working with pea plants, discovered the simple laws of inheritance of traits that allowed one to predict the outcome of crosses with certain traits.
  • Louis Pasteur

    Louis Pasteur
    Louis Pasteur described the scientific basis for fermentation, win making and the brrewing of beer, established the science of microbiology, and proposed the germ theory, claiming that microorganisms were responsible for infectious disease
  • Johann Miescher

    Johann Miescher
    -- found nucleic acid in white blood cells from pus in bandages. This later led scientists to believe that DAN might be inheritable material of an organism.
  • Fruit Flies

    Fruit Flies
    Thomas hunt morgan discovered that genes wer on chromosomes
  • Sir Alexander Fleming

    Sir Alexander Fleming
    --isolated penicillin from a fungus. Many of his ideas are used to develop biotechnology drugs today.
  • Chargaff

    Chargaff
    -- showed that DNA the number of units of adenine epualed those of thymine and the number of units of cytosine equaled those of guanine.
  • Beadle and Tatum

    Beadle and Tatum
    --Proposed the "One gene produces one enzyme" hypothesis
  • Avery, McCarty, and McLeod

    Avery, McCarty, and McLeod
    --established that indeed DNA was the hereditary material that was transferred.
  • Rsalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins

    Rsalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins
    established through X-ray crystallography that DNA was indeed a double helix
  • Hayes

    Hayes
    Discovered plasmid DNA, circular pieces of DNA found in bacteria
  • Walter Gilbert

    Walter Gilbert
    discovered the mechanism of gene expression through his study of messenger RNA
  • Arber, Nathans, and Smith

    Arber, Nathans, and Smith
    discovered bacterial restriction enzymes that cut DNA
  • Khorana and Nirenberg

    Khorana and Nirenberg
    discovered the 64 codons that code for the 20 amino acids making up proteins
  • DNA plasmids

    DNA plasmids
    Plasmids were isolated and purified by Vinograd
  • Madel and Higa

    Madel and Higa
    They were responsible for the first transformation of the bacterium Escherichia coli
  • Cloning experiments

    Cloning experiments
    Conducted by Boyer and Cohen
  • Genentech

    Genentech
    The world's first genetic engineering CO., was founded
  • Recombinant DNA

    Recombinant DNA
    140 scientists met to draw up guidelines for work with recombinant DNA in microorganisms. Paul Berg was a key organizer
  • Sanger and Gilbert

    Sanger and Gilbert
    found a way to sequence DNA. Given an unknown piece of DNA, they were able to read the correct order of bases of adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine.
  • Boyer E. coli

    Boyer E. coli
    Boyer inserted a synthetic insulin gene into E. coli
  • Botstein

    Botstein
    Botstein found that one could be identifed by the pattern made of one's DNA through a digest by different enzymes. This DNA fingerprint was called Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism
  • Louise Joy Brown

    Louise Joy Brown
    Louis was born, the first human baby resulting from in vitro fertilization, in which sperm and egg are joined in a petri dish. The fertilized egg is later implanted in a womb
  • Biotech companies

    Biotech companies
    The US Supreme Court ruled that genetically altered life froms can be patented. This resulted in a huge start up of biotech companies.
  • Trangenic animals

    Trangenic animals
    Ohio University scientists made the first trangenic animals
  • Eli Lilly CO

    Eli Lilly CO
    Placed a human insulin gene inside bacteria
  • Agrobcterium-meditaed gene

    Agrobcterium-meditaed gene
    Schell, Chilton, Van Montagu, Fraley, and Horsch transformed plants with Agrobacterium-meditated gene transfer
  • Kary Mullis

    Kary Mullis
    invented polymerase chain reaction to amplify DNA in the lab
  • RFLP in DNA

    RFLP in DNA
    Jeffries applied RFLP in DNA profiling to the study of criminal cases.
  • Fluorenscence sequencer

    Fluorenscence sequencer
    speeds up the labor intense process
  • Gene gun

    Gene gun
    Genes were moved into an organism through the use of a gene gun.
  • Safety guidelines

    Safety guidelines
    NIH revised safety guidelines for recombinant DNA to include plants grown in green houses and animals raised in barns
  • RNA interference

    RNA interference
    Andrew Fire and Craig Mello discovered RNA interference, silencing of genes, in the worm C. elegans
  • Kohler, Milstein, and Jerne

    Kohler, Milstein, and Jerne
    used monoclonal antibody (MAb) technology
  • Maynard Olson

    Maynard Olson
    and colleagues at WA University invented "yeast artificial chromosomes," or YACs, which are expression vectors for large proteins
  • Ian Wilmut

    Ian Wilmut
    cloned Dolly the sheep from an adult cell of an ewe at the Roslin Institue in Scotland.
  • DNA microarray "DNA chip"

    DNA microarray "DNA chip"
    looking at the expression of all the genes of an organism at one time on a microscope slide of silicon chip, was developed
  • Dabiri and Garner

    Dabiri and Garner
    invented an automated DNA sequencer that had the capability of sequencing 76800 base pairs per hour, 5 to 30 times faster than existing sequencers. Technology like this greatly sped up the Human Genome Project
  • Ron Breaker

    Ron Breaker
    coined the term risoswitch from part of an mRNA molecule that can regulate its own activity and therefore gene expression
  • Human Genome Project

    Human Genome Project
    Announcement was made of the compretion of the Human Genome Project by francis collins and Craig Venter. The project provided the ability to find genes and gave rise to the sequencing of other genomes