Timeline of biotechnology
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Notable events in the history of biotechnology:
- 8000 BC – Collecting of seeds for replanting. Evidence that Mesopotamian people used selective breeding (artificial selection) practices to improve livestock.
- 4000 BC – Chinese made yogurt and cheese with lactic-acid-producing bacteria.
- 1500 AD – Plant collecting around the world.
- 1590 AD – The microscope is invented by Zacharias Janssen.
- 1675 AD – Microorganisms discovered (using first microscope).
- 1856 AD – Gregor Mendel discovered the laws of inheritance.
- 1862 AD – Pasteur discover the bacterial origin of fermentation.
- 1919 AD – Karl Ereky, a Hungarian agricultural engineer, first used the word biotechnology.
- 1928 AD – Alexander Fleming noticed that a certain mould could stop the development of bacterias.
- 1953 AD – James D. Watson and Francis Crick describe the structure of Deoxyribonucleic acid, DNA.
- 1972 AD – The DNA composition of chimpanzees and gorillas is discovered to be 99% similar to that of humans.
- 1975 AD – Method for producing monoclonal antibody developed by Kohler and Milstein.
- 1980 AD –
- Modern biotech is characterized by recombinant DNA technology. The prokaryote model, E. coli, is used to produce insulin and other medicine, in human form. (About 5% of diabetics are allergic to animal insulins available before).
- A viable brewing yeast strain Saccharomyces cerevisiae 1026 acts as a modifier of the microflora in the rumen of cows and digestive tract of horses).
- AD The United States Supreme Court 447 U.S. 303 (1980) rules in favor of microbiologist Ananda Chakrabarty in the case of a USPTO request for a first patent granted to a genetically modified living organism (GMO) in history.
- 1984 AD – Nutrigenomics as applied science in animal nutrition.
- 1994 AD – FDA approves of the first GM food from Calgene: "Flavr Savr" tomato.
- 1997 AD – British scientists from the Roslin Institute report cloning a sheep called Dolly using DNA from two adult sheep cells. Ian Wilmut led the team that cloned Dolly.
- 2000 AD – Completion of a, "rough draft," of the genome in the Human Genome Project.
- 2002 AD – Researchers sequence the DNA of rice, the main food source for two-thirds of the world's population. Rice is the first crop to have its genome decoded.
- 2003 AD – GloFish, the first biotech pet, hits the North American market. Specially bred to detect water pollutants, the fish glows red under black light thanks to the addition of a natural bioluminescence gene.
