The burgeoning fields of biosciences and biotechnology are exciting and complex. This section of our Web site is intended as a resource to help those who are new to these fields of science, but interested in learning more. Please let us know what we can do to make this section more helpful to you.
Ancient Biotech
Biotechnology, or the use of living organisms and their products for human benefit, has been around longer than you may think. The exact origins of humans first attempts to utilize the power of nature are not known, but our transition from hunter gatherers into an era of communities and cities led to innovations and early accounts among the ancient cultures of the Chinese, Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, and Sumerians, and others beginning perhaps as early as 5000 B.C. The necessities of survival of these large communities depended on domesticating animals for livestock, using microorganisms during fermentation to produce breads, yogurts, cheeses, and alcohol in the form of beer and wine. Plant balms and herbal remedies were developed to treat ailments and wounds. As understanding increased, selective breeding began to improve the production of crops and livestock and plant balms were used to treat infections.
Pre-20th Century
The pace of scientific discovery accelerated with renewed interest in the sciences during the Renaissance. Renaissance leaders such as Leonardo DaVinci and Galileo Galilei were true artists whose knowledge spanned across several disciplines of art, science and medicine. Glass and lens technology not only allowed Galileo and later Copernicus to peer at the heavens and turn the Ptolemic earth-centric view of the solar system on its head, but also were a preview of later inventions, such as Zacharias Janssen’s invention of the first microscope (a tube with lenses on each end) in 1590. Later, while Newton was exploring his laws of motion, a contempory mathematician, Robert Hooke, was describing the first cells of cork plant tissue in his Micrographia (1665). A decade later, Anton van Leewenhoek, the best microscope maker of his era, made discoveries of the first microscopic forms of life, observing protozoa from pond water and bacteria from his own teeth scrapings.
As the 18th century closed, one of the most dramatic experiments in all of medicine occurred, as Edward Jenner developed the first vaccine when he injected a healthy boy with cow pox in order to build immunity to prevent the deadly scourge of smallpox (the word vaccine is derived from the latin word ‘vacca’ meaning cow). The 19 th century began with the coining of a new term, biology” in 1802, and by mid-century, perhaps two of its greatest contributors, Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel left their indelible footprints. Darwin made known his theory of evolution in the 1859 monumental publication, the Origin of Species, while a few years later, an unknown monk in Austria, Gregor Mendel, breeding his garden peas, published his rules of inheritance (1865) and became the father of genetics. The very first isolation of DNA was performed by Frederich Miescher in 1869. By the end of the century, a German physician, Robert Koch, made significant discoveries toward the validation of the germ theory of disease.
Unraveling the Genetic Code
In the early 20 th century, the seeds of prosperity in the modern biotechnology movement began. New sciences continued to emerge, particularly immunology and genetics. Thomas Hunt Morgan, and his group of fruit fly researchers, made significant contributions to genetics by showing that the basic units of Mendel’s heredity, genes, were physically located on chromosomes. The first cancer causing virus was discovered by Peyton Rous and the first bioremediation project that utilized bacteria to treat raw sewage began in England. In 1928, Alexander Fleming discovered the mold penicillin which inhibited the growth of a human skin disease-causing bacterium called Staphylococcus aureus, leading to the purification of the first antibiotic, penicillin.
In 1943, Oswald Avery and others purified provided definitive evidence that DNA is the material which makes up genes. In 1949, Linus Pauling demonstrated that sickle cell anemia is a disease that can result from a single mutation in a protein. The race to solve the structure for DNA was solved in 1953, when James Watson, Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin revealed the three-dimensional structure DNA.
The DNA Gold Rush
With the structure of DNA solved, the key mechanisms behind this chemical blueprint for life begin to be unraveled. The 1950s and 1960s witnessed a further understanding of cellular processes and delved into the biochemistry of metabolic disorders and disease.In 1961, the genetic code, or how the information in DNA is used to make proteins, became understood for the first time. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, researchers discovered molecular scissors, or DNA restriction enzymes, that can cut segments of DNA, ushering in an era of genetic engineering and cloning.
In 1973 Paul Berg, Herbert Boyer and Stanley Cohen performed the first successful recombinant DNA experiment, stitching together different bacterial genes from the common human gut bacterium, E. coli. With the success of this experiment, other researchers continued to make progress in genetic engineering and the 970’s also witnessed the birth of the biotechnology industry. In addition, new lab methods such as DNA sequencing and protein analysis, and later the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), which makes unlimited copies of genes, led to a future revolution in forensics and biomedicine.
In the 1980s, the maturation and growth of the biotech industry continued unabated, as the first genetically engineered products are approved by the FDA. Genentech’s Humulin, became the first new treatment for diabetes that was produced from genetically engineered bacteria. Soon after, methods to genetically engineer plants are discovered and the first field tests of genetically engineered tobacco plants are performed and later, the Flavr Savr, a genetically engineered tomato resistant to rotting, is approved for sale.
In the late 1980s, what has been referred to as the biological equivalent of the Apollo program, the Human Genome Project, was launched. This international effort had a fifteen year goal of mapping and sequencing the 3 billion letters of the human genetic DNA code. The 1990s also offered the tantalizing promise of DNA sequence applications toward health and medicine, as genes responsible for cystic fibrosis, breast cancer and Huntington’s disease were identified.
The end of the twentieth century drew to a close as the world was introduced to Dolly, the first sheep to be cloned from DNA derived from adult cells. One year later, the John Gearhart and James Thomson, published independent results showing their ability to isolate human stem cells. As the millenium ended, vigorous debates over the ethics related to biotechnology, genetic testing, stem cell research and genetically modified organisms ensued.
21st Century and the Era of Convergence: Nanotech, Biotech, Cognitive and Information Sciences
The dawn of a new millennium began with an announcement that will provide a fulcrum for 21st century science. In 2000, a rough draft of the human genome, or the map of human life, is completed by Celera Genomics and the Human Genome Project. In 2001, the sequence of the human genome is published. With the publication, a future era of genomics, proteomics, bioinformatics and personalized medicines is made possible.
In addition to advances in biomedicine, a new scientific renaissance is now emerging. It is clear that 21 st century scientific progress will depend on the convergence of so-called NBIC (nanotechnology, biotechnology, information and cognitive) technologies. These technologies combine the immense knowledge generated from the past 30 years of biotechnology with our new found ability to manipulate matter at the scale of atoms, or nanotechnology, and fifty years of computing advances (information technology) and the science of understanding the human brain (cognitive sciences).
The revolution that began in biotechnology with the discovery of the structure of DNA fifty years ago has roughly paralleled advances in computing no less dramatic, with the generation of the first integrated circuit by Jack Kilby in 1958 to modern computers packed with over a billion transistors and a world connected by the Internet, cell phones, and PDAs. Our knowledge of the nature of matter and energy stretches across scales from the subatomic world of quarks to the formation of galaxies. By combining these new technologies and integrating them across all scales, we may soon be able to build new materials, eradicate disease, discover renewable energy technologies or even slow down and reverse the aging process.
It is because of this rich history and the confluence of these new technologies around which the core areas of strategic systems themes have been integrated into the mission of the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University. These four thematic areas include: biological, nanoscale, cognitive and sustainable systems. Built into these areas are ASU competencies in strategic areas of focus that include biosignatures, biosensors, bionics and biofactories, which will rely on exploring the remarkable structure and function of living systems as a catalyst for discovery and innovation and also help to enhance the quality of life for ourselves and the planet.
