Biotechnology is the use of biology to the solution of problems and the creation of valuable goods. The most well-known use of biotechnology is the genetic engineering-based creation of therapeutic proteins and other pharmaceuticals.. Humans began to use microbes' biological processes to manufacture bread, alcoholic beverages, and cheese, as well as to preserve dairy goods, around 6,000 years ago. However, such processes are not included in today's definition of biotechnology, which was coined to describe the molecular and cellular technologies that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s. Genentech, a pharmaceutical corporation founded in 1976 by Robert A. Swanson and Herbert W. Boyer to commercialise the recombinant DNA technology pioneered by Boyer, Paul Berg, and Stanley N. Cohen, headed a nascent “biotech” industry in the mid-to-late 1970s. Genentech, Amgen, Biogen, Cetus, and Genex were among the first businesses to produce genetically altered molecules for medical and environmental purposes.

Recombinant DNA technology, often known as genetic engineering, dominated the biotechnology sector for more than a decade. Splicing the gene for a useful protein (typically a human protein) into production cells—such as yeast, bacteria, or mammalian cells in culture—causes the protein to start producing in large quantities. A new organism is produced when a gene is spliced into a producing cell. Biotechnology investors and researchers were first unsure whether the courts would enable them to get patents on organisms; after all, patents were not permitted on newly discovered and identified creatures in nature. However, in the case of Diamond v. Chakrabarty, the United States Supreme Court decided in 1980 that “a live human-made microorganism is patentable subject matter.” This decision resulted in the formation of a slew of new biotechnology companies as well as the industry's first investment boom. Recombinant insulin was the first product created through genetic engineering to receive FDA approval in 1982. FDA is the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Since then, dozens of genetically engineered protein medications have been commercialized around the world, including recombinant versions of growth hormone, clotting factors, proteins for stimulating the production of red and white blood cells.

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Rebecca Pearson
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