History of biotechnology

Biotechnology is defined as the application of scientific and engineering principle

in processing of materials by biological agents to provide goods and services.
Babylonian (6000 B.C.)

Preparation of beer

Sumerians (4000 B.C.)

Twenty different varieties of beer

A.E. Garrod (1902)

Found that many human diseases like diabetes,

phenylketoneria, tyrosinosis, cretinism, albinism etc. are

caused by fault in metabolism

O.T. Avery, C.M.Macheod and Pioneers in chemical nature of the substance that was
M. McCarty (1940)
G.W. Beadle and E.C. Tatum

responsible for bacterial transformation

Genes worked through biochemical pathways in

(1941)

Breadmould (Neurospora crassa) (one gene one

Sanger (1953)

enzyme hypothesis)
Established protein, insulin structure

Watson and Crick (1953)

DNA double helix

Nirenberg (1963)

Genetic code

Merrifield (1963)

First automatic polypetide synthesizing machine

Edman and Begg (1967)

Developed methods for protein degradation

Arber, Smith and Nathan

Restriction enzymes

(1972)
Gilbert, Maxam, Sanger

Developed rapid methods for chemical analysis of DNA

(1976)
Itakura et al.(1977)

Synthesised the genes of human somatostatin and insulin

H.G. Khorana (1979)

For the first time synthesized artificial gene capable of

functioning within a living cell

Tissue culture
Klercker (1892)
Haberlandt (1902)
White (1934)

Isolation of protoplast
Totipotency of cells
Growing excised tomato roottip invitro for an indefinite

Gauthert (1937)
Van Overbeek et al. (1941)

period
Cultivating undifferentiated carrot tissue
Isolated embryos of Datura and it was grown as

Ball (1946)

chemical medium supplemented with coconutmilk

First demonstrated possibility of regenerating plant

Skoog and Tsui (1948)

La Rue (1949)
Morel and Wetmore (1951)
Tulecke (1953)
Munir, Hildebrandt and Riker

invitro from shoot apex of certain angiosperms

Caulogenesis in tobacco stem segments
Grow immature maize emdosperm in culture
First to achieve success with monocut culture
First haploid callus from pollen grains of Ginkgo biloba
Growth of isolated cells in liquid medium

(1954)
Skoog et al. (1955)

Identified 6-furfurylaminopurine, a degraded product of

Skoog and Miller (1957)

herring sperm DNA stimulates cell divison

Tobacco callus culture
Auxin/cytokinin ratio determines the root or shoot

Reinert (1959)
Cocking (1960)
Guha and Maheswari (1964)

initiation
Nutrient medium solidified with agar for embryogenesis
Isolated plant protoplast enzymatically
Obtained direct embryos from cultured anthers of Datura

Nishi et al. (1968)

which led to the development of haploid plants

First to induce differentiation in monocot callus culture

Binding et al. (1972)

of rice
Isolated Streptomycin resistant callus of Petunia

Carlson and his group (1972)

hybrida
Fused protoplast of Nicotiana glauca and N. langsdorffii
(Parasexual hybrid)

Biotechnology in India

National Biotechnology Board under DST in early eighties

In 1986, DBT created in the Ministry of Science and Technology

International center for genetic engineering and biotechnology (ICGEB)

Trieste (Italy)

New Delhi (1987) (India)

In addition research centers of biotechnology was established at

1. IARI, New Delhi (NRC for plant biotechnology)
2. NDRI, Karnal
3. IVRI, Izatnagar
DBT

Research activities

Biotechnological processes:
Microbiology, genetics, molecular biology, biochemistry
biotechnology
Activities in biotechnology
1. Recombinant DNA and Genetic Engineering
2. Cell cultures
3. Waste treatment and utilization
4. Enzymes and biocatalysts
5. Fuels
6. Nitrogen fixation
7. Fermentation and pharmaceuticals

roots of