History of Biotechnolgy

  • Rediscovering Genetics

    Rediscovering Genetics
    Higo Marie De Vries, Karl Franz Joseph Correns and Erich Tschermat von Seysenegg rediscovered the genetic work that Mendel had worked on, yet it had been ignored
  • Female and Male chromosomes

    Female and Male chromosomes
    Clarence McClung found that females have 2 X chromosomes, and males have an X and a Y.
  • Chromosome maps

    Chromosome maps
    The first chromosome maps were created.
  • Discovery of X-Ray Mutation

    Discovery of X-Ray Mutation
    Hermann Muller discovered that X-Rays create mutations.
  • DNA Discoveries

    DNA Discoveries
    Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod and Maclyn McCarthy discover that DNA is what is passed down through generations and is inherited.
  • Restriction emzymes

    Restriction emzymes
    Werner Arber figured out that bacteria defend themselves against viruses by cutting the virus DNA using restriction enzymes. They are now used in DNA technologies. This was a major advancement in genetic engineering.
  • Test Tube Baby

    Test Tube Baby
    The first test-tube baby is born and was the result of vitro fertilisation where the parents gametes were joined outside of the mother's body. Then the embryo was placed back into the mother to further develop.
  • Humans & Chimpanzees

    Humans & Chimpanzees
    Charles Sibley and Jon Ahlquist were able to show through DNA that humans were more closely related to chimpanzees than any other ape species.
  • HGP

    HGP
    The Human Genome project is created between scientists around 16 different countries to work out whole genetic code
  • Liver transplant

    Liver transplant
    The first liver ‘xenotransplant’ from one type of animal to another is carried out successfully.
  • Dolly the Sheep

    Dolly the Sheep
    Dolly the sheep is born. She was produced by Ian Wilmut and his team at the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh. She had been cloned from an udder cell of an adult sheep and the egg implanted into a completely different sheep. Dolly only lived six years, around half the usual lifespan for a sheep, it was found that she had aged more quickly than normal.
    Polly the sheep born later the same year was the first genetically engineered sheep to be cloned.
  • Cloned Pigs

    Cloned Pigs
    Cloned pigs born for the first time by Alan Coleman and his team at PPL.
  • Genome project completed

    Genome project completed
    The sequencing of the human genome is completed, two years ahead of schedule.