History of Biotechnology

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History of Biotechnology
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Stages of Biotech

• Ancient
• Classical
• Modern

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Ancient Biotech

• Begins with early civilization
• Developments in ag and food production
• Few records exist

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Ancient Biotech

• Archeologists research
• Ancient carvings and sketches sources of
  information

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Classical Biotech

• Follows ancient
• Makes wide spread use of methods from ancient,
  especially fermentation
• Methods adapted to industrial production

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Classical Biotech

• Produce large quantities of food products and
  other materials in short amount of time
• Meet demands of increasing population

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Classical Biotech

• Many methods developed through classical biotech
  are widely used today.

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Modern Biotech

• Manipulation of genetic material within organisms
• Based on genetics and the use of microscopy,
  biochemical methods, related sciences and
  technologies

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Modern Biotech

• Often known as genetic engineering
• Roots involved the investigation of genes

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Ancient Biotech

• Not known when biotech began exactly
• Focused on having food and other human needs

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Ancient Biotech

• Useful plants brought from the wild, planted near
  caves where people lived
• As food was available, ability to store and
  preserve emerged

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Ancient

• Food preservation most likely came from unplanned
  events such as a fire or freeze

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Domestication

• 15,000 years ago, large animals were hard to
  capture
• People only had meat when they found a dead
  animal
• Came up with ways of capturing fish and small
  animals

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Domestication

• Food supplies often seasonal
• Winter food supplies may get quite low
• Domestication is seen by scientists as the
  beginning of biotech

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Domestication

• Adaptation of organisms so they can be cultured
• Most likely began 11,000 12,000 years ago in
  the middle east

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Domestication

• Involved the collecting of seed from useful
  plants and growing crude crops from that seed
• Involved the knowledge that the seed had to
  properly mature

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Domestication

• Proper planting
• Need for water, light and other conditions for
  plant growth
• Earliest plants likely grains and other seeds
  used for food

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Domestication

• Raising animals in captivity began about the same
  time in history
• Easier to have an animal close by that to hunt
  and capture a wild one

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Domestication

• Learned that animals need food and water
• Learned about simple breeding
• How to raise young

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Domestication

• Cattle, goats and sheep were the first
  domesticated food animals

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Domestication

• About 10,000 years ago, people had learned enough
  about plants and animals to grow their own food
• The beginning of farming.

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Food

• Domestication resulted in food supplies being
  greater in certain times of the year
• Products were gathered and stored

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Food

• Some foods rotted
• Others changed form and continued to be good to
  eat
• Foods stored in a cool cave did not spoil as
  quickly

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Food

• Foods heated by fire also did not spoil as
  quickly
• Immersing in sour liquids prevented food decay

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Food preservation

• Using processes that prevent or slow spoilage
• Heating, cooling, keeps microorganisms (mos)
  from growing

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Food preservation

• Stored in bags of leather or jars of clay
• Fermentation occurs if certain mos are present
• Creates an acid condition that slows or prevents
  spoilage

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Cheese

• One of the first food products made through
  biotechnology
• Began some 4,000 years ago
• Nomadic tribes in Asia

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Cheese

• Strains of bacteria were added to milk
• Caused acid to form
• Resulting in sour milk

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Cheese

• Enzyme called rennet was added
• Rennet comes from the lining of the stomachs of
  calves

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Cheese

• Rennet is genetically engineered today
• Not all cheese is made from produced rennet

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Yeast

• Long used in food preparation and preservation
• Bread baking
• Yeast produces a gas in the dough causing the
  dough to rise

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Yeast

• Fermented products
• Vinegar
• Require the use of yeast in at least one stage of
  production

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Yeast

• Species of fungi
• Some are useful
• Some may cause diseases

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Vinegar

• Ancient product used to preserve food
• Juices and extracts from fruits and grains can be
  fermented

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Fermentation

• Process in which yeast enzymes chemically change
  compounds into alcohol
• In making vinegar the first product of
  fermentation is alcohol

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Fermentation

• Alcohol is converted to acetic acid by additional
  microbe activity
• Acid gives vinegar a sour taste
• Vinegar prevents growth of some bacteria

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Vinegar

• Keeps foods from spoiling
• Used in pickling
• Biblical references to wine indicate the use of
  fermentation some 3,000 years ago

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Fermentation control

• In ancient times, likely happened by accident
• Advancements occurred in the 1800s and early
  1900s

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Fermenters

• Used to advance fermentation process
• Specially designed chamber that promotes
  fermentation

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Fermenters

• Allowed better control, especially with vinegar
• New products such as glycerol, acetone, and
  citric acid resulted

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Development

• Of yeasts that were predictable and readily
  available led to modern baking industry

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Antibiotics

• Use of fermentation hastened the development of
  antibiotics
• A drug used to combat bacterial infections

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Antibiotics

• Penicillin
• Developed in the late1920s
• Introduced in the 1940s
• First drug produced by microbes

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Antibiotics

• Many kinds available today
• Limitations in their use keep disease producing
  organisms from developing immunity to antibiotics

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Antibiotics

• Use antibiotics only when needed.
• Overuse may make the antibiotic ineffective when
  really needed later

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Antibiotics

• Some disease organisms are now resistant to
  certain antibiotics
• Used in both human and vet medicine

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Modern Biotech

• Deals with manipulating genetic info
• Microscopy and advanced computer technology are
  used
• In-depth knowledge of science

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Modern Biotech

• Based on genetics research from the mid 1800s

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Genetics

• Study of heredity
• Most work has focused on animal and plant
  genetics
• Genes determiners of heredity

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Genes

• Carry the genetic code
• Understanding genetic structure essential for
  genetic engineering

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Heredity

• How traits are passed from parents to offspring
• Members of the same species pass the
  characteristics of that species

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Heredity

• Differences exist within each species.
• Differences are known as variability

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Heredity variability

• Are used in modern biotechnology

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Modern Biotech

• Use of biotech to produce new life forms
• Emerged in mid 1900s
• Made possible by rDNA technology

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rDNA

• Recombinant DNA Process
• Genetic material is moved from one organism to
  another
• Materials involved are quite small

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rDNA

• Challenging and often controversial
• Many have opposing or negative views of
  biotechnolgy

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People in Biotech

• Zacharias Janssen
• Discovered the principle of the compound
  microscope in 1590
• Dutch eye glass maker

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Anton Van Leeuwenhoek

• Developed single lens microscope in 1670s
• First to observe tiny organisms and document
  observations

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Anton V.L.

• Work led to modern microscopes
• Electron microscope developed in 1931 by group of
  German scientists

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Gregor Mendel

• Formulated basic laws of heredity during mid
  1800s
• Austrian Botanist and monk
• Experimented with peas

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Mendel

• Studied inheritance of seven pairs of traits
• Bred and crossbred thousands of plants
• Determined that some traits were dominant and
  other recessive

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Mendel

• Findings were published in 1866
• Largely ignored for 34 years

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Johan Friedrich Miescher

• Swiss Biologist
• Isolated nuclei of white blood cells in 1869
• Led to identification of nucleic acid by Walter
  Flemming

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Walter Sutton

• Determined in 1903 that chromosomes carried units
  of heredity identified by Mendel
• Named genes in 1909 by Wilhelm Johannsen,
  Danish Botanist

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Thomas Hunt Morgan

• Studied genetics of fruit flies
• Early 1900s
• Experimented with eye color
• His work contributed to the knowledge of X and Y
  chromosomes

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Thomas Hunt Morgan

• Nobel Peace Prize in 1933 for research in gene
  theory

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Ernst Ruska

• Build the first electron microscope in 1932
• German electrical engineer
• Microscope offered 400X magnification

68
Alexander Fleming

• Discovered penicillin in 1928
• First antibiotic drug used in treating human
  disease
• Observed growth of molds (Penicillium genus) in a
  dish that also contracted bacteria

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Alexander Fleming

• Bacteria close to the molds were dead
• Extracting and purifying the molds took a decade
  of research
• Penicillin first used in 1941

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Alexander Fleming

• Penicillin credited with saving many lives during
  WWII when wounded soldiers developed infections.

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Rosalind Elsie Franklin

• Research in France and England in mid 1900s
• Led to discovery of structure of DNA
• Her early research was used to produce an atomic
  bomb

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Rosalind Franklin

• Set up X ray diffraction lab
• Photographs of DNA showed that it could have a
  double helix structure

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Rosalind Franklin

• Some questions surround the theft of her work in
  1952
• Including x ray photographs

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Watson and Crick

• James Watson
• Francis Crick
• Collaborated to produce the first model of DNA
  structure in 1953

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Watson and Crick

• Described DNA dimensions and spacing of base
  pairs
• Had major impact on genetic engineering carried
  out today

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Watson

• Born in the US
• Crick born in England
• Collaborative research at Cambridge University in
  England

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Norman E. Borlaug

• Developed wheat varieties producing high yields
• Research in Mexico
• Semi dwarf varieties
• Developed wheat variety that would grow in
  climates where other varieties would not

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Borlaug

• Nobel Peace Prize in 1971
• Credited with helping relieve widespread hunger
  in some nations

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Mary Clare King

• Research into nature of DNA during late 1900s
• Determined that 99 of human DNA is identical to
  chimpanzee

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Mary Clare King

• 1975 found similar gene pools between humans and
  chimpanzee made it possible to research
  hereditary causes of breast cancer

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Ian Wilmut

• Cloning of a sheep named Dolly in 1997
• Produced from tissue of an adult sheep
• Previous cloning efforts had been from early
  embryos

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Research

• Use of systematic methods to answer questions.
• Problems may be basic or applied

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Basic

• Require generating new info to gain understanding
• Applied involve use of knowledge already
  acquired.

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Research

• Supplies facts that can be used to improve a
  process or product
• Settings range from elaborate labs to field plots

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Field Plot

• Small area of land that is used to test questions
  or hypothesis
• Belief is that same result would be obtained if
  carried out on larger scale

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Field Plots

• Often tested several times
• Known as replication

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Research

• Done by agencies, universities, private
  companies, individuals
• Biotech research in ag is carried out by ag
  experiment stations and large corporations

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Development

• Creation of new products or methods based on
  findings of research
• Carefully studied before being put into full
  scale use

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Development

• New products tested before approval
• Government agencies such as the FDA are involved
• Prototype is developed research model that is
  carefully tested

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Prototype

• Becomes a pattern for the production of similar
  products
• After being fully tested, full scale production
  begins.