History of Biotechnology
•
Biotechnology
Ancient
Classical
Modern
NEED + KNOWLEDGE
=> TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES
Ancient Biotechnology
* Domestication and Agriculture
* Ancient Plant Germplasm (living tissue from
which new plants can be grown)
* History of Fermented Foods and Beverages
(the beginning of Classical Biotechnology)
Domestication
Nomadic lifestyle of prehistoric peoples
- gather food and hunt animals
- 10K years ago they abandoned their nomadic ways
and started to domesticate plants and animals
- archaeological findings ancient farming sites
New World, the Far East, and Europe
at ≈ the same time
*Agriculture developed independently in several areas of the world
Domestication
9000 BC - First evidence of plant domestication in hills above Tigris River
5000 BC - Agricultural communities exist in Mesopotamia
2000 BC - The Babylonians and Egyptians left pictorial evidence that dogs,
sheep, and cattle had been domesticated
It is unclear what exactly prompted a shift to a more sedentary lifestyle, but:
- increasing demand for food due to population growth
- natural dwindling of herds of migratory animals
Ancient Plant Germplasm
1000 BC - Domestication complete for all important
food crops in the new world
- Selected seeds, cuttings, or tubers from
superior plants for the next planting
700 BC - Assyrians and Babylonians
- Hand pollination of date palm
Large-scale organized seed production began in the early 1900s
Ancient Plant Germplasm
Nikolai I. Vavilov (1887-1943), Russian plant geneticist
and agronomist collected and catalogued thousands
of ancient crop plants and their wild relatives.
-Between 1923 and 1931, he traveled extensively in the
Soviet Union and in over 50 countries to collect economically
important plant varieties - beans, pea, chickpeas, maize,
lentils, oats, rye, wheat
-Established one of the first important gene banks for long-term
storage of important plant germplasm.
Demonstrated the economic value of germplasm collection particularly with
respect to breeding programs for disease resistance
Ancient Plant Germplasm
As the Soviet government suppressed Mendelian genetics,
the US was establishing centers for the preservation, study,
and distribution of germplasm.
National Seed Storage Laboratory - Fort Collins Colorado
National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation
CGIAR - Consultative Group of
International Agricultural Research
Stores plant material such as seeds, plant cuttings, and tubers.
- storage is either short-, intermediate, and long-term
Ex. Seeds in intermediate-term storage are kept at -5 - 0 oC
Dried seeds are stored in sealed containers at - 20 oC
- long-term to last over 100 years
- Periodic germination and viability tests are performed
Tissues are now also kept in tissue culture
- individual cells capable of regenerating new platelets.
Ancient Biotechnology
FERMENTATION
4000 BC - Egyptians used yeast in wine and bread
making
2000 BC - Chinese develop fermentation
Fermented Foods
Once people settled in villages, the development of new foods was
possible - accidental discovery!
* food contamination often destroys the food reserve
• in some cases the microbial activity enhances the flavor
and texture
• kimchi - sauerkraut - yogurt - cheese
FERMENTATION - (lat.) fervere => to boil
addition of yeast to fruit juice => wine
yeast to malt and grain => beer
aroma of bread baking => alcohol produced
bread rises => because of trapped CO2
CO2
Glucose --> - -> - -> Pyruvate ---> Acetaldeyhyde ------> Ethanol
Classical Biotechnology
Knowledge drives technology
scientific and applied knowledge
practical experience
* From mid-nineteenth century
knowledge of cell processes
- refined fermentation technology
Brewers began producing alcohol on a large scale in the early 1700s
* By the 1800’s brewers knew to use pure yeast cultures
Classical Biotechnology
1822-1895
Louis Pasteur - germ theory rather than
spontaneous generation
- microbes are responsible for
fermentation
- proved that fermentation is the result of
activity of yeasts and bacteria.
Classical Biotechnology
*Sir Alexander Fleming
* Nobel prize 1945
1881 - 1995
Fleming left culture dishes lying around
He found that an unusual mold had germinated on the plate.
and inhibited the growth of the bacterium that was growing
on this plate.
A crude extract of the mold was then shown to have antibacterial properties.
This observation led Fleming to discover in 1928 and by 1929 an antibiotic that was
produced by the mold Penicillium.
Fleming did not attempt to purify penicillin. But in the late 1930s Australian Howard Florey
and Chain and others developed penicillin into a clinical antibiotic in 1940-41.
Fleming, Florey, and Chain shared the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Classical Biotechnology
- Penicillin was produced by the fermentation of cultured Penicillium.
Classical Biotechnology - ANTIBIOTICS
Foundation of Modern Biotechnology
Knowledge of
cell structure
biochemical reactions
genetic make-up of organisms