My national Geographic

                                      By ANCIE N. THISTORY

Genetic engineering may seem like a new subject, but in reality has been going on for a very long time. Generally speaking, breeding animals is a form of genetic engineering (because the breeder is trying to encourage certain genes), so is artificial insemination. The history of genetic engineering is rich and complex, filled with controversy and breakthroughs in science. The following is a chronology of genetic engineering created to show the major steps in its history. The knowledge of these steps is necessary to understand many aspects of genetic engineering. There are also several entries here concerning animal's rights. They have been presented here because the issue of the rights of transgenic animals is of some concern.


The goals of genetic engineering go back before the Romans. In The Republic, Plato argues that only the best animals of a type should be propagated, whilst the less desirable should be prevented from breeding.

In 1865 Gregor Mendel published the results of his experiments with heredity. Due lack of interest, they are lost.

In 1869, DNA was first discovered.

In 1885, August Weisman put forth a theory stating that the genetic information of a cell diminishes as the cell differentiates. William Roux conducted an experiment with embryonic frogs that seemed to affirm this theory. He destroyed one of the cells during the 2-cell stage and the result was half a tadpole. Hans Adolf Edward Dreisch tried to repeat the experiment with sea urchins, but instead of destroying one of the cells he pried them apart, and each one resulted in two entire sea urchins. This result proved Weisman wrong.

In 1900 Mendel's laws are rediscovered, and Mendel is hailed as the first geneticist.

In 1902 Walter Sutton published "On the Morphology of the Chromosome Group in Brachyotola magna" in which he theorized that the chromosomes carry the cell's units of inheritance. It also theorized that they occur in pairs, and the behavior of chromosomes during the division of the sex cells was the basis of Mendel's laws of heredity.

In 1903, Sir Archibald Garrod provided the first scientific relationship between genes and human disease in his description of " Inborn Errors of Metabolism."
In that same year Sutton published " The Chromosomes in Heredity," which stated that chromosomes contained genes.

The Protection of Animals Act of 1911 is put into effect making harming animals illegal.

In 1928, Hans Spemann conducted the first nuclear transfer experiment.

In 1938, T.M. Sonneborn reported that Paramecium aurelia procreated by cloning.
In the same year Hans Spemann published a book called " Embryonic Development and Induction," in which he discussed the possibility of cloning organisms from adult cells.

In 1939, rabbits were produced by parthenogenesis.

During WW2, in the 1940's, Hitler tried to create a "superrace".

In 1943, the role of DNA in genetic inheritance was determined.

A young German girl gave birth to a daughter (her clone) caused by parthenogenesis in 1944.

In 1949 the Council of Europe was founded to promote democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. It called for a moratorium (a suspension of activity) on human cloning. Denmark, Estonis, Finland, France, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Moldova, Norway, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Turkey signed it.

In 1952, Robert Briggs and Thomas J. King cloned tadpoles of Northern Leopard frogs. 62 out of 104 attempts were successful. They discovered that the more specialized the tadpoles became, the more difficult it was to clone them. These experiments led Briggs and King to conclude that it was impossible to clone organisms from adult cells.

In 1953 James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the double helix structure of DNA.

In 1956, it was discovered that a human cell has 46 chromosomes.

In the 1960's, carrots were cloned using coconut milk. Coconut milk is thought to have all the nutrients necessary to make seeds grow. It stimulates undifferentiated cells to grow and multiply and to eventually differentiate into a new plant. The growing tips of carrots were used to do the experiment because the cells in them are still undifferentiated, so the coconut milk will make them grow.

In the 1960's, Dr. J.B. Gurdon cloned 11 frogs out of 707 attempts.

In 1963, J.B.S. Haldane coined the term 'clone' in a speech entitled "Biological Possibilities for the Human Species of the next Ten-Thousand Years." The term 'cloning' had not been used before this time in relation to any experiments.

The genetic code was cracked and the Animal Welfare Act created in 1966.

The Laboratory Animal Welfare act goes into effect in 1967.

Werner Arber discovered restriction enzymes (used to separate genes) in 1968.

The first gene was isolated in 1969 by James Shapiero and Johnathan Beckwith.

In the early 1970's, recombinant DNA is discovered.

In 1970, Dr. Har Gobind synthesizes a gene.

On January 29, 1971, Dr. James Watson claimed humans could not be cloned due to technical and physical barriers.

In 1972, Paul Berg created the first recombinant DNA molecule by combining the DNA of two different organisms.

In 1973, Stanley N. Cohen and Herbert W. Boyer made the first transgenic animals. They spliced DNA, rejoined different fragments, and inserted them into E. Coli bacteria, which then multiplied.

   On July 26, 1974, a moratorium on genetic engineering experiments was put into effect in America.

   In Feb. 1975, the moratorium ended.

   In 1975, Dr J.D. Bromhall fused an egg cell and a somatic cell of two rabbits to produce a new rabbit with the qualities of each.

May, 1978.- The first congressional hearing devoted to human cloning is held by the House Subcommittee on Health and Environment.

Louis Brown, the first test-tube baby, was born on July 26, 1978.

The first successful microinjection of foreign DNA into a mouse zygote occurred in the early 1980's. This was the first transgenic mammal.

In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court in the case Diamond v. Chakabarty deemed transgenic microorganisms patentable.

In 1983, Richard Seed was the first to successfully transplant a human embryo from one woman to a surrogate mother that suffered infertility problems.

In 1984 Steen Willadsen cloned a sheep from embryo cells in the process known as twinning.
Later that year Davor Solter, in a paper published by Science describing his work with cloning, stated," The cloning of mammals by simple nuclear transfer is biologically impossible."

In 1986 the USDA approved the first sale of a genetically altered organism- a virus used as a pseudorabies vaccine.
W.R. Grace and Company, a cattle firm, cloned the first cattle this same year.

In 1987 there were gene maps of mice, rats, hamsters, cats and humans. While they are not complete, they are a start.

In 1994 carp and catfish that had been genetically altered for desirable traits were put on the market.

In 1995 Megan and Morag, the first mammals cloned from differentiated embryo cells, were born.

In 1997 Dolly the Sheep, the first clone of a mammal from an adult's body cell, is born.
Dolly is closely followed by Polly, the first transgenic farm animal (a sheep) was born. She had been altered to contain a human gene. Her birth was the first step in the application of cloning technology to produce a useful product.
Later that year two rhesus monkeys were cloned- the first genetic transfer in primates.
   Further later, Bill Clinton banned federal funds for human cloning and he asked for a moratorium on it.
On December 5, Richard Seed announced that he planned to clone a human being before federal laws could be made to ban the process.

On January 6, 1998, American Scientist Richard Seed declares that he is ready to make human clones.
In 1998 it was discovered that clones made from eggs with implanted somatic nuclei have the mitochondria DNA of the egg (or the donor of the egg.), and thus clones achieved in this fashion are not perfectly identical.
In July, Ryuzo Yanagimachi, Teruhiko Wakayama, and Toni Perry of the University of Hawaii announced that they had cloned 50 mice, constituting three generations of clones -some of them clones of clones- from adult cells since October 1997. They had a success rate of 3 out of every 100 attempts.
In November, a human embryo was cloned by Advanced Cell Technologies using the skin from a man's leg and the enucleated egg cell of a cow. It was allowed to develop for 12 days. Since then several more have been made with the intention of harvesting stem cells from the embryos. Stem cells are undifferentiated and can, in theory, become anything in the body.

Sept. 1999- Genetic engineering is used to create "smart" mice- called the Doogie strain after Doogie Howser M.D.

Any sources in the bibliography that are not cited for other work are now cited for this chronology. Each book had several of these facts and each on was mentioned by more than one book, so rather than have a long string of numbers citing after each fact, suffice it to say that this in place of it.