4000–2000 B.C.
◊ Biotechnology first used to leaven bread and ferment beer, using yeast
(Egypt).
◊ Production of cheese and fermentation of wine (Sumeria, China and Egypt).
◊ Babylonians control date palm breeding by selectively pollinating female trees
with pollen from certain male trees.

500 B.C.
◊ First antibiotic: moldy soybean curds used to treat boils (China).

A.D. 100
◊ First insecticide: powdered chrysanthemums (China).

1322
◊ An Arab chieftain first uses artificial insemination to produce superior horses.

1590
◊ Janssen invents the microscope.

1663
◊ Hooke discovers existence of the cell.

1675
◊ Leeuwenhoek discovers bacteria.

1761
◊ Koelreuter reports successful crossbreeding of crop plants in different species.

1797
◊ Jenner inoculates a child with a viral vaccine to protect him from smallpox.

1830–1833

1830 - Proteins discovered.

1833 - First enzyme discovered and isolated.

1835–1855
◊ Schleiden and Schwann propose that all organisms are composed of cells, and
Virchow declares, "Every cell arises from a cell."

1857
◊ Pasteur proposes microbes cause fermentation.

1859
◊ Charles Darwin publishes the theory of evolution by natural selection. The
concept of carefully selecting parents and culling the variable progeny greatly
influences plant and animal breeders in the late 1800s despite their ignorance
of genetics.

1865
◊ Science of genetics begins: Austrian monk Gregor Mendel studies garden
peas and discovers that genetic traits are passed from parents to offspring in a
predict able way—the laws of heredity.

1870–1890
◊ Using Darwin's theory, plant breeders crossbreed cotton, developing
hundreds of varieties with superior qualities.
◊ Farmers first inoculate fields with nitrogen-fixing bacteria to improve yields.
◊ William James Beal produces first experimental corn hybrid in the laboratory.

1877 - A technique for staining and identifying bacteria is developed by Koch.

1878 - The first centrifuge is developed by Laval.

1879 - Fleming discovers chromatin, the rod-like structures inside the cell
nucleus that later came to be called chromosomes.

1900
◊ Drosophila (fruit flies) used in early studies of genes.

1902
◊ The term immunology first appears.

1906
◊ The term genetics is introduced.

1911
◊ The first cancer-causing virus is discovered by Rous.

1914
◊ Bacteria are used to treat sewage for the first time in Manchester, England.

1915
◊ Phages, or bacterial viruses, are discovered.

1919
◊ First use of the word biotechnology in print.

1920
◊ The human growth hormone is discovered by Evans and Long.

1928
◊ Penicillin discovered as an antibiotic: Alexander Fleming.
◊ A small-scale test of formulated Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) for corn borer
control begins in Europe. Commercial production of this biopesticide begins in
France in 1938.
◊ Karpechenko crosses radishes and cabbages, creating fertile offspring
between plants in different genera.
◊ Laibach first uses embryo rescue to obtain hybrids from wide crosses in crop
plants—known today as hybridization.

1930
◊ U.S. Congress passes the Plant Patent Act, enabling the products of plant