History of Biotechnology Lecture Notes

This set of vocabulary flashcards covers the history of biotechnology from ancient fermentation and early cell discovery to modern genetic engineering, CRISPR, and xenotransplantation.

Biotechnology (Etymology)

Derived from the Greek words 'bios' (life), 'teuchos' (tool), and 'logos' (study of or essence of), meaning the study of tools from living things.

Classical Definition of Biotechnology

A set of tools that utilize living things (and more recently, derivatives of living things) to solve problems or to provide products.

Zymotechnology

The study of yeast fermentation.

Rennet

The enzyme used to make cheese, which is naturally present in the stomachs of ruminants.

Jiahu

A site in the Yellow River Valley of China where the earliest chemically confirmed alcoholic beverage (ca. 7000-6600 B.C.) was discovered.

Yeast

A single-celled agent vital to the fermentation process which, starved of oxygen, transforms grape juice into wine.

Abiogenesis

Also known as spontaneous generation, it is the theory proposed by Aristotle that living things can arise from nonliving matter.

Chrysanthemum

A plant used by the Chinese in 100 BC as a natural insecticide.

Mule

One of the oldest examples of crossbreeding, produced as the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse.

Teosinte

An ancient grain with few kernels enclosed in a hard casing, thought to have been selectively bred into maize 6,000 to 10,000 years ago.

Cell Theory

A theory discovered by Matthias Schleiden and Theodore Schwann stating that all living things are made of cells, cells are the smallest units of life, and cells only rise from existing cells.

Giacomo Pylarini

An Italian physician who became the world’s first immunologist by attempting to prevent smallpox through inoculation.

Pasteurization

A process invented by Louis Pasteur in 1863 involving heating wine sufficiently to inactivate microbes without ruining the flavor.

Genes

Referred to by Gregor Mendel as invisible internal 'factors' that account for observable traits passed from one generation to the next.

Nuclein

A compound including nucleic acid isolated by Friedrich Miescher in 1868 from pus cells on discarded bandages.

Attenuated Strains

Weakened strains of organisms that cannot cause disease but protect against severe forms of the same disease, published by Pasteur in 1880.

Nutrient Agar

A standard tool for obtaining pure cultures and identifying genetic mutants, which became standard in 1881.

Gram Stain

A differential staining technique for bacteria described by Christian Gram in 1884.

Walter Stanborough Sutton

In 1902, he stated that chromosomes are paired and suggested they are the carriers of Mendel’s 'factors'.

Salvarsan

The first chemotherapeutic agent, discovered by Paul Erlich in 1906.

Genotype

A term coined by Wilhelm Johannsen to describe the genetic constitution of an organism.

Phenotype

A term coined by Wilhelm Johannsen to describe the actual organism resulting from a combination of the genotype and environmental factors.

Karoly Ereky

A Hungarian agricultural engineer who first used the word 'biotechnology' in 1918.

Penicillin

The world’s first antibiotic or bacteria killer, discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928 from the mold Penicillium notatum.

Transforming Principle

The term Fredrick Griffiths used for the unknown substance that changed rough bacteria to smooth; later identified as DNA by Oswald Avery.

One-gene-one-enzyme Hypothesis

A hypothesis developed by George Beadle and Edward Tatum in 1941 using the mold Neurospora.

Chargaff's Rules

The principle that in DNA, the amounts of adenine and thymine are roughly equal, as are the amounts of guanine and cytosine.

HeLa Human Cell Line

The first human cell line shown to grow outside the body for extended periods, developed by George Otto Gey using cells from Henrietta Lacks.

Central Dogma

The explanation by Francis Crick and George Gamov of how DNA functions to make protein.

Codon

A sequence of three nucleotide bases that determines each of 20 amino acids.

Oncogenes

Genes like the $SRC$ gene that are believed to trigger tumor growth, first discovered in a virus by Duesberg and Vogt.

Recombinant DNA Molecule

A hybrid circular molecule formed by using restriction enzymes to cut DNA and ligase to paste two strands together, first created by Paul Berg in 1972.

Ames Test

A test developed by Bruce Ames in 1973 to identify chemicals that damage DNA and identify carcinogenic substances.

Somatostatin

A human growth hormone-releasing inhibitory factor; it was the first human protein manufactured in bacteria by Genentech, Inc. in 1977.

Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR)

A technique invented by Kary Mullis for multiplying DNA sequences in vitro.

Flavr Savr Tomato

The first genetically engineered food product to gain FDA approval, which occurred in 1994.

Biosensor

An analytical device that combines a biological component with a physicochemical detector to detect an analyte.

Nuclear Transfer

The process of transferring complete genetic material from one cell into an unfertilized egg cell without a nucleus, used to clone Dolly the sheep.

GloFish

The world's first commercialized GMO pet, which went on sale in Taiwan in 2003.

Avastin

An angiogenic inhibitor and the first antiangiogenic drug for cancer approved by the FDA in 2004.

XNA

A synthetic polymer capable of storing genetic information and evolving through natural selection, but which can be carefully manipulated unlike DNA.

Prime Editing

A method of genetic engineering described in 2019 that is considered superior to previous methods like CRISPR.

Xenotransplantation

The transplantation of living cells, tissues, or organs from one species to another, such as the 2021 transplant of a pig kidney to a human.