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In 6000 BCE, Neolithic peoples of Central Asia discovered yogurt and cheese made with lactic acid-producing bacteria by various culture.
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In 1675, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek discovers and describes bacteria and protozoa.
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In 1798, Edward Jenner uses first viral vaccine to inoculate a child from smallpox.
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In 1862, Louis Pasteur discovers the bacterial origin of fermentation.
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In 1862, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is founded by Abraham Lincoln
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In 1863, Gregor Mendel discovers the law of inheritance.
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In 1877, Robert Koch develops a technique for staining bacteria for identification.
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In 1881, Louis Pasteur develops vaccines against bacteria that cause cholera and anthrax in chickens.
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In 1885, Louis Pasteur and Emile Roux developed the first rabies vaccine.
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In 1906, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is founded by Theodore Roosevelt and Harvey Washington Wiley.
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In 1908, the first U.S. hybrid maize produced by G.H. Shull of Carnegie Institute through self-pollination.
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In 1911, Peyton Rous discovers the first cancer-causing virus.
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In 1919, Karl Ereky, a Hungarian agricultural engineer, first uses the word biotechnology.
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In 1928, Alexander Fleming notices that a certain mould could stop the duplication of bacteria, leading to the first antibiotic penicillin.
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In 1953, James D. Watson and Francis Crick describe the structure of DNA.
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In 1961, Marshall Warren Nirenberg and Heinrich Matthaei discover genetic code.
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In 1973, Stanley Norman Cohen and Herbert Boyer perform the first successful recombinant DNA experiment, using bacterial genes.
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In 1980, the U.S. patent for gene cloning is awarded to Cohen and Boyer.
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In 1983, the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) technique is conceived by Kary B. Mullis.
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In 1986, The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) approves the release of the first crop produced through biotechnology - tobacco plants.
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In 1990, the first federally approved gene therapy treatment is performed on a young girl who suffered from an immune disorder.
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In 1994, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves the first GM food: the “Flavr Savr” tomato.
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In 1997, 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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In 2000, completion of a “rough draft” of the human genome in the [Human Genome Project].
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In 2003, the Human Genome Project is completed, providing information about the locations and sequence of the human genes on all 46 chromosomes.
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In 2006, the FDA approves the recombinant vaccine Gardasil. Gardasil becomes the first vaccine to be developed against human papillomavirus (HPV), an infection implicated in cervical and throat cancers. Gardasil also becomes the first preventative cancer vaccine.
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In 2008, the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) is established by Rajiv Shah.
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In 2010, the Canadian company, Medicago, used Durham, NC as its first American facility. They are a company that genetically manipulate tobacco plants to produce proteins used in making flu vaccines.
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In 2010, researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute create the first synthetic cell.
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In 2012, the FDA issued draft rules for bio-similar drugs.
