HISTORY OF BIOTECHNOLOGY
1797 : First vaccination. Edward Jenner takes pus from a cowpox lesion, inserts it into an incision on a boy's arm. 1830 : Proteins are discovered. 1833: First enzyme is discovered and isolated. 1865 : Gregor Mendel discovers the laws of inheritance by studying flowers in his garden. The science of genetics begins. 1915 : Phages — viruses that only infect bacteria — are discovered 1927 : Herman Muller discovers that radiation causes defects in chromosomes. 1944 : DNA is proven to carry genetic information by Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod and Maclyn McCarty. 1953 : James Watson and Francis Crick describe the double helical structure of DNA. They shared the 1962 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology with Maurice Wilkins. 1955 : The amino acid sequence of insulin is discovered by Frederick Sanger. 1958 : DNA is made in a test tube for the first time. Sickle cell disease is shown to occur due to a change in one amino acid 1971: The first complete synthesi...