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This website is designed to guide users through the
area of international treaties, conventions, standards and guidelines
applicable to biotechnology. |
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A Brief History of Biotechnology |
An Overview of the Biotechnology (Genomics) Revolution |
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The biotechnology or genomics revolution refers to the massive impacts
of new technologies that allow life to be manipulated at its most basic
level, genes. To view a November 2002 video film on "Biotechnology and Weapons of Mass Destruction - The Future", discussed by Matt Meselson, Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University, click here. "Raising public awareness of international efforts to control biotechnology", paper presented by Catherine Rhodes to the Technologies, Publics and Power Conference, Akaroa, New Zealand, 1-5 February 2004. |
A Brief History of Biotechnology |
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Biotechnology, being the use of biological processes to create useful products, has a long history. Early applications of biotechnology, for example in the production of beer and bread, made use of naturally occurring processes and did not require understanding of what these processes were. Some modern applications of biotechnology still make use of naturally occurring processes, which are now better understood, for example the use of bacteria in sewage treatment. Modern scientific developments have allowed the genetic engineering of organisms to enhance natural processes and the creation of novel organisms with foreign genes in their DNA. Also they have enabled a far more detailed understanding of natural biological processes, allowing more effective application of biotechnology. Modern biotechnology has been applied across a wide variety of long established industries and to agriculture; it has also led to the formation of its own industry. The range and number of applications of biotechnology continue to increase based on new scientific developments. Modern study of genetics can be dated back to the beginning of the twentieth century with the rediscovery of work done by Gregor Mendel on the inheritance of characteristics in pea plants. It was soon established that genes (the name given to the factors of inheritance) were located on the chromosomes within cells, and the relative location of six genes on a chromosome of the fruit fly was established in 1913. It was not until the early 1950s, however, that the role of DNA as the carrier of genetic information was widely accepted. This coincided with the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA by Francis Crick and James Watson, announced in 1953. These two discoveries combined have since enabled scientists to gain a much greater understanding of living organisms at the genetic level, and to begin to manipulate and control biological processes by adjusting the genetic code. An important technique for the manipulation of DNA was developed and first used in 1972 by Paul Berg, and is known as recombinant DNA. This technique allows sections of unrelated DNA to be cut and pasted together and the first recombinant organism was created the following year. Recombinant DNA techniques have produced bacteria that can 'manufacture' pharmaceutical products such as human insulin and genetically modified crops with traits such as pesticide resistance. The significance of recombinant DNA lies in its ability to transfer genetic information across species boundaries to create novel organisms. This ability has also led to concerns about the safety of using such a technique. DNA works to control biological processes in living organisms by instructing cells to produce proteins. The DNA code consists of four letters referring to the bases that form part of its structure: adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G) and thymine (T). The letters code in sets of three for specific amino acids, which are then built up into protein molecules. Early work on mapping genes to particular locations on chromosomes has developed into efforts to work out the sequence of the genetic codes of particular organisms and to locate the genes to their exact position in that code. The first full genome (entire genetic code) of an organism was sequenced in 1978 by Frederick Sanger. This sequence, of the bacteriophage phiX-174, was around 5,375 bases long. Technological developments in the 1980s that speeded up the process of sequencing have enabled work on larger genomes to be undertaken. An international, public project to sequence and map the human genome (the Human Genome Project) began work in 1990. The human genome is approximately 3,000,000,000 bases long. Draft sequences for the human genome were produced by both the Human Genome Project and another, private, initiative in February 2001 and thhe final sequence was published in April 2003. The genomes of approximately 180 other organisms have also been sequenced, mostly of bacteria but also a variety of rice, the fruit fly, the nematode worm and the mouse. Sequencing of the genomes of bacteria can assist understanding of disease, and genomes like that of the mouse serve as important references for work on the human genome. One of the most direct benefits of sequencing the human genome will be in enhanced understanding and therefore improved treatment of human diseases. Genome sequencing provides vast amounts of data to which the tools of genetic engineering can be applied, increasing the scope of biotechnology applications. Biotechnology is the application of biological processes to create useful products and services. Rapid scientific developments in the past few decades have produced a knowledge base and set of tools and techniques that enable biological processes to be understood and controlled to an extent never before possible. This has created the biotechnology revolution. Genetic engineering has been used to increase understanding of biological processes, and to improve them, it has also been used to create new sources of particular products and completely novel products that have never before occurred in nature. Biotechnology is now applied across a huge range of industries, and there has been great expansion in the scope of its applications since the development of recombinant DNA techniques. While genetic engineering has been key to the revolutionary expansion of modern biotechnology some applications of biotechnology still involve the use of entirely natural biological processes. |
Resources on the History of Biotechnology |
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Timelines: Lane, Jo, Ann, History of Genetics Timeline, for Access Excellence at the National Health Museum, 1994, http://www.accessexcellence.org/AE/AEPC/WWC/1994/geneticstln.html. Physical Sciences Information Gateway (PSIgate), Chemistry Timeline, http://www.psigate.ac.uk/newsite/chemistry_timeline.html. Websites: BioTech Resources Web Project, BioTech's Life Science Dictionary, Indiana Institute for Molecular and Cellular Biology, Indiana University, last updated 02/07/02, http://biotech.icmb.utexas.edu/search/dict-search.html. Biotechnology Industry Organization, Guide to Biotechnology - Industrial and Environmental Applications, 2002, http://www.bio.org/speeches/pubs/er/industrial.asp. Genome News Network (includes list of sequenced genomes) http://www.genomenewsnetwork.org. Human Genome Program, Human Genome Project Information, last updated 27/10/04, http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/home.shtml. Books: Aldridge, Susan, The Thread of Life, The Story of Genes and Genetic Engineering, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, (1996). Kevles, Daniel, J., and Hood, Leroy, (eds), The Code of Codes - Scientific and Social Issues in the Human Genome Project, London: Harvard University Press, (1992). Whelan, W., J., & Black, Sandra, From Genetic Experimentation to Biotechnology: The Critical Transition, Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, (1982). |
Glossary for History of Biotechnology |
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Page last updated - 10th January 2005 Comments/enquiries to: Catherine Rhodes at peaceweb'at'bradford.ac.uk When printing this page direct from the Internet right and left margins should be set to 2.5mm. |