Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering, History Of | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

At that time molecular biologists devised methods to isolate, identify, and clone genes as well as to mutate, manipulate, and insert them into other species. One of the key elements in such research was the discovery of restriction enzymes. These enzymes are able to cleave DNA at a limited number of sequence-specific sites and often leave "sticky ends." Isolated DNA from any organism could be cleaved with a restriction enzyme and then mixed with a preparation of a vector that had been cleaved with the same restriction endonuclease. By virtue of the "sticky ends," a hybridmolecule could be created that contained the gene of interest, which could then be inserted into such a cloning vector. The importance of restriction endonucleases was recognized in 1978 by the awarding of the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine to Werner Arber, Daniel Nathans, and Hamilton Smith for their discovery of these enzymes.

Further Advances and Ethical Concerns

The first experiment to combine different DNA molecules was performed in 1972 in the laboratory of Paul Berg (who shared the 1980 Nobel Prize in chemistry for this work). The following year Stanley Cohen and Herbert Boyer combined some viral DNA and bacterial DNA in a plasmid to create the first recombinant DNA organism.

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