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Yeast is one of the oldest microbes that have been exploited by humans for their benefit, the oldest fermentation was used to make beer in Sumeria and Babylonia as early as 7,000 BCE.
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Yogurt and cheese are made with lactic acid-producing bacteria by various cultures.
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Completion of "rough draft" of the human genome in the {[Human Genome Project}].
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The Aztecs used Spirulina algae to make cakes
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Cells are first described by Robert Hooke.
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Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek discovers and describes bacteria and protozoa.
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English surgeon Edward Jenner pioneers vaccination and inoculates a child with a viral smallpox vaccine.
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Louis Pasteur discovers the bacterial origin of fermentation.
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Gregor Mendel discovers laws of inheritance.
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Friedrich Miescher reported nuclein,which is a compound that consisted of nucleic acid that he extracted from white blood cells.
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Pasteur of France and John Tyndall of Britain demolished the concept of spontaneous generation and proved that existing microbial life came from preexisting life.
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Robert Koch develops a technique for staining bacteria for identification.
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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 developed the first rabies vaccine and use it on Joseph Meister.
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American pathologist Peyton Rous discovers the first cancer-causing virus.
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Karl 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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A team of researchers at Oxford University find a way to purify penicillin and keep it stable.
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James D. Watson and Francis Crick describe the structure of DNA.
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Dr. Joseph Murray performs the first kidney transplant between identical twins.
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Dr. Osamu Shimomura discovers the green fluorescent protein in the jellyfish Aequorea victoria and later develops it into a tool for observing previously invisible cellular processes.
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Dr. Maurice Hilleman develops the first American vaccine for mumps!
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Stanley Norman Cohen and Herbert Boyer perform the first successful recombinant DNA experiment, using bacterial genes.
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Stanley Cohen and Herbert Boyer develop a new technique for splicing together strands of DNA from more than one organism. The product is called recombinant DNA (rDNA).
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The U.S patent for gene cloning is awarded to Cohen and Boyer.
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Humulin, Genentech's human insulin drug produced by genetically engineered bacteria for the treatment of diabetes, is the first biotech drug to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
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The Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) technique is conceived by Kary Mullins
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First federally approved gene therapy treatment is performed successfully on a young girl who suffered from an immune disorder.
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The United States Food and Drug Administration approves the first GM food: the "Flavr Savr" tomato.
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Dr. Jonas Salk develops the first polio vaccine, marking the first use of mammalian cells (monkey kidney cells) and the first application of cell culture technology to generate a vaccine.
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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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Sasaki and Okana produce transgenic marmosets that glow green in ultraviolet light and they pass the trait onto their offspring.
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Dr. J. Craig Venter announces completion of “synthetic life” by transplanting synthetic genome capable of self-replication into a recipient bacterial cell.
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Researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle announce the successful sequencing of a complete fetal genome using snippets of DNA floating in its mother’s blood.
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Researchers in Sweden develop a blood test that can detect cancer at an early stage from a single drop of blood.
