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New York BioHistory

Learn about the scientists behind the discoveries, entrepreneurs,
political leaders, and significant events, people and institutions that are the foundation
of the biotechnology, medical device, pharmaceutical and life science industries
in the state of New York.

Tell us about New York's BioHistory. If you are aware of a notable event, person,
organization/company or accomplishment that we should include,
please e-mail: BioHistory@InfoResource.org

1817 -- New York Academy of Sciences founded

Founded in 1817, the New York Academy of Sciences is an independent, nonprofit, membership-based organization that brings together scientists of different disciplines from around the world. Their purpose is to advance the understanding of science, technology, and medicine, and to stimulate new ways to think about how their research is applied in society and the world.

The accomplishments and impacts of the Academy are many: Since 1823 the Academy has published its celebrated Annals series of proceedings of scientific conferences. Annals volumes are among the most highly cited of scientific research publications. Since 1948 the Academy has organized the New York Science and Engineering Fair for metropolitan area high school students. The Science Research Training program enables high school students to work alongside area scientists as summer interns. Since 1978 the Academy's Committee on the Human Rights of Scientists has worked tirelessly to promote the rights of scientists, health professionals, engineers, and educators around the world.

1848 -- American Association for the Advancement of Science founded.

American Association for the Advancement of Science founded in 1848 marked the emergence of a national scientific community in the United States, and was the first organization established to promote the development of science and engineering at the national level and to represent the interests of all its disciplines.

Today, the AAAS serves nearly 300 affiliated societies and academies of science and publishes the peer-reviewed general science journal Science. The non-profit AAAS is open to all and fulfills its mission to "advance science and serve society" through initiatives that include science policy, international programs, science education, and public understanding of science.

1849 -- Charles Pfizer & Company (Pfizer Inc.) founded.

In 1849, cousins Charles Pfizer and Charles Erhardt founded Charles Pfizer & Company, a fine-chemicals business, in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, NY. The company's first product was santonin, a successful antiparasitic.

By 1899, Pfizer was a leader in the American chemical business, with a portfolio of products that included citric acid, camphor, cream of tartar, borax, and iodine. Citric acid was Pfizer's most profitable chemical, produced with imported concetrates of lemon and lime. In 1919, Pfizer chemist James Currie successfully pioneered the mass production of citric acid from sugar through mold fermentation, an achievement that eventually freed Pfizer from dependency on European citrus growers and positioned the company as a leader in fermentation technology. In 1941, Pfizer responded to an appeal from the U.S. Government to hasten the manufacture of penicillin to treat Allied soldiers fighting in World War II, and used its fermentation technology to become the world's largest producer of penicillin.

From 1950 to 2000, Pfizer continued to grow, adding an agriculture division as well as several international operations, pharmaceutical plants, and research centers. In 2000, Pfizer and Warner-Lambert merged to form the world's fastest-growing major pharmaceutical company. Today, Pfizer has three business segments: health care, animal health, and consumer health, with products available in more than 150 countries and yearly revenues of $50 billion.

1859 -- Charles Darwin published "The Origin of Species."

In 1859, British naturalist Charles Darwin published "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life" in which he postulated his theory of evolution that explained how the diverse of species on Earth evolved from a simple, singled-celled ancestor.

From 1831-1836, Darwin served as a naturalist aboard the H.M.S. Beagle -- a British science expedition around the world. In South America Darwin discovered fossils of extinct animals that were similar to modern species, and on the Galapagos Islands, located west of Equador, he noticed many variations of plants and animals of the same general type as those in South America. Throughout the expedition Darwin studied plants and animals and collected specimens for further study.

Upon his return to London, Darwin conducted thorough research of his notes and specimens, and out of his study grew several related theories: evolution did occur; evolutionary change was gradual, requiring thousands to millions of years; the primary mechanism for evolution was a process called natural selection; and the millions of species alive today arose from a single original life form through a branching process called "specialization."

Darwin's theory of evolutionary selection holds that variation within species occurs randomly and that the survival or extinction of each organism is determined by that organism's ability to adapt to its environment. Darwin's theory of evolution remains the foundation of modern biology.

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1860 -- New York Medical College founded

New York Medical College was founded in 1860 by a group of civic leaders in New York City and led by William Cullen Bryant, the noted poet, and editor of the Evening Post who was zealously devoted to the branch of medicine known as homeopathy, and was concerned with the condition of hospitals and medical education. During those pre-Civil War years, New York City was plagued with slums, garbage-laden streets and the population lived with the constant threat of epidemics. The school opened its doors on the corner of 20th street and Third Avenue as the New York Homeopathic Medical College, and Bryant served as the medical school’s first president and held the office of president of the Board of Trustees for 10 years.

In 1863, a separate but related institution known as the New York Medical College for Women was founded by Dr. Clemence Sophia Lozier, staffed and supervised by many of the College’s male faculty. In 1867, this institution graduated the first female physician in the country, Dr. Emily Stowe, who was refused admission to every medical school in her native Canada. Dr. Susan McKinney, the first African-American female physician in New York State and the third in the nation, graduated from New York Medical College for Women in 1870 with the highest grade in the class. When the institution closed in 1918, students transferred to the New York Medical College, thus, the College makes its claim to be among the first medical schools to admit women.

In 1875, Metropolitan Hospital opened as a municipal facility on Ward’s Island, staffed largely by the faculty of New York Medical College. The relationship, which continues, is among the nation’s oldest continuing affiliations between a private medical school and a public hospital. In 1889. the Flower Free Surgical Hospital, built by New York Medical College became the first teaching hospital in the country to be owned by a medical college. It was constructed at York Avenue and 63rd Street with funds given largely by Congressman Roswell P. Flower, later governor of New York. In 1928, the College became the first medical school in the nation to establish a scholarship program specifically for minority students through the efforts of Walter Gray Crump, Sr., M.D. An alumnus and voluntary faculty member who participated vigorously in the academic life of the College. Dr. Crump taught surgery, served as a staff surgeon at other hospitals, was a founder of the New York Medical College for Women, a trustee of Tuskegee Institute and Howard University and assumed a leading role in the advancement of minority education and minority affairs. In 1938, the College and Fifth Avenue Hospital merged and became New York Medical College, Flower and Fifth Avenue Hospitals.

In 1963, the Graduate School of Medical Sciences was founded, establishing for the first time graduate education within a school separate from the medical curriculum. During the 1960s and 70s, the College experienced financial difficulties, and in 1978, Terence Cardinal Cooke, Archbishop of New York, took a personal interest in the College and agreed to foster a relationship that ensured the continued excellence of the extensive Catholic hospital system.

Today, the New York Medical College is one of the nation’s largest private health sciences universities, and the university awards advanced degrees to students preparing for careers in medicine, science and the health professions. The university has 1,350 full-time faculty members and 1,450 part-time and voluntary faculty who teach, conduct research and provide patient care at 28 hospital affiliates.

1865 -- Gregor Mendel, the father of modern genetics, presents his laws of heredity.

1887 -- Bristol, Myers Company founded.

In 1887, William McLaren Bristol and John Ripley Myers invested $5,000 into a failing drug manufacturing firm called Clinton Pharmaceutical Company, located in Clinton, New York. The company was incorporated December 13, 1887 with William Bristol as president and John Myers as vice president. In May 1898 the company was renamed Bristol, Myers Company (a hyphen replaced the comma after Myers’s death in 1899). In 1900 Bristol-Myers became profitable -- where it has remained ever since.

The company’s first nationally recognized product was a poor man’s spa: a laxative mineral salt that, when dissolved in water, reproduced the taste and effects of the natural mineral waters of Bohemia. Named Sal Hepatica, the product initially sold modestly, but from 1903-1905 sales increased tenfold. Another success was Ipana toothpaste, the first toothpaste to include a disinfectant in its formula and protect against the effects of bleeding gums. The demand for Sal Hepatica and Ipana transformed Bristol-Myers from a regional into a national and international company.

In 1924, gross profits exceeded $1 million for the first time in Bristol-Myers’ history, and the company’s products were sold in 26 countries. At this time, the shares held by John Myers’s heirs became available for sale, triggering a series of moves that in 1929 turned Bristol-Myers into a publicly held company listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

In 1943, the company acquired Cheplin Laboratories -- a Syracuse, New York manufacturer of acidophilus milk -- thereby becoming a producer of pharmaceutical products. Cheplin's expertise in fermentation techniques lead it to become a key supplier to the U.S. War Production Board’s program to mass-produce penicillin for the Allied armed forces. By the end of WWII, it was clear that penicillin and other antibiotics represented an immense opportunity for Bristol-Myers. Cheplin was renamed Bristol Laboratories. In 1957, Frederic N. Schwartz was appointed president and CEO of Bristol-Myers when Henry Bristol, nearing 70, became chairman of the board.

Bristol-Myers therafter began acquiring well-managed smaller companies. The first major acquisition was Clairol, a company founded by the husband-and-wife team of Lawrence M. Gelb and Joan Clair, which had turned haircoloring from a difficult-to-use specialty item into a highly successful mainstream consumer product. With Clairol also came the executive Richard Gelb, elder son of Clairol’s founders. In 1976 Richard Gelb was elected chairman of the board. In 1986, the company opened a state-of-the-art research complex in Wallingford, Connecticut, designed to house more than 800 scientists and support staff. (In 1995, this facility would be renamed the Richard L. Gelb Center for Pharmaceutical Research and Development.)

In 1989, Bristol-Myers merged with Squibb creating a global leader in the health care industry. The merger created what was then the world’s second-largest pharmaceutical enterprise. In 1990, the Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute was established with headquarters in Princeton, New Jersey, and research facilities in Wallingford, Connecticut, and other sites around the world. Today, Bristol-Myers Squibb is a global leader in the research and development of innovative lifesaving and life-enhancing treatments for cancer, HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases, cardiovascular diseases, pain, and other conditions.

1887 -- Marine Hospital Service Hygienic Laboratory (National Institutes of Health) founded.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) traces its roots to 1887, when a one-room laboratory was created within the Marine Hospital Service (MHS), predecessor agency to the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS). The MHS was established in 1798 to provide for the medical care of merchant seamen -- charged by Congress with examining passengers on arriving ships for clinical signs of infectious diseases, such as cholera and yellow fever, to prevent epidemics.

During the 1870s and 1880s, scientists in Europe presented compelling evidence that microscopic organisms were the causes of several infectious diseases, and MHS officials closely followed these developments. In 1887, Joseph Kinyoun, a MHS physician trained in the new bacteriological methods, set up a one-room laboratory in the Marine Hospital at Stapleton, Staten Island, New York. Kinyoun called this facility a "laboratory of hygiene" in imitation of German facilities, and within a few months, he identified the cholera bacillus and used his Zeiss microscope to demonstrate it to his colleagues as confirmation of their clinical diagnoses.

The Biologics Control Act enacted in 1902 had major consequences for the Hygienic Laboratory. It charged the laboratory with regulating the production of vaccines and antitoxins, making it a regulatory agency four years before passage of the 1906 Pure Food and Drugs Act. The danger posed by biological products that had emerged from bacteriologic discoveries resulted from their production in animals and their administration by injection. In 1901, thirteen children in St. Louis died after receiving diphtheria antitoxin contaminated with tetanus spores. This tragedy spurred Congress to pass the Biologics Control Act, and between 1903-1907 standards were established and licenses issued to pharmaceutical firms for making smallpox and rabies vaccines, diphtheria and tetanus antitoxins, and various other antibacterial antisera. (In 1972, responsibility for regulation of biologics was transferred to the Food and Drug Administration). (Photo: courtesy of the NIH Almanac)

In 1912 MHS was reorganized, renamed the Public Health Service (PHS) and authorized to conduct research into noncontagious diseases and into the pollution of streams and lakes in the U.S. During World War I, the PHS attended primarily to sanitation of areas around military bases in the U.S., and when the 1918 influenza pandemic struck Washington, physicians from the laboratory were pressed into service treating patients in the District of Columbia because so many local doctors had fallen ill. In 1930, the Ransdell Act changed the name of the Hygienic Laboratory to the National Institute of Health (NIH) and authorized the establishment of fellowships for research into basic biological and medical problems. The roots of this act extended to 1918, when chemists who had worked with the Chemical Warfare Service in World War I sought to establish an institute in the private sector to apply fundamental knowledge in chemistry to problems of medicine. In 1937, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) was created with sponsorship from every Senator in Congress, and was authorized to award grants to nonfederal scientists for research on cancer and to fund fellowships at NCI for young researchers.

During World War II, the NIH focused almost entirely on war-related problems. At the close of the war, PHS leaders guided through Congress the 1944 Public Health Service Act, which defined the shape of medical research in the post-war world. Two provisions were especially important: 1) In 1946 the NCI grants program was expanded to the entire NIH, and the program grew from just over $4 million in 1947, to more than $100 million in 1957, and to $1 billion in 1974. The entire NIH budget expanded from $8 million in 1947 to more than $1 billion in 1966, now fondly remembered as "the golden years" of NIH expansion. Accompanying growth in the grants program was the proliferation of new categorical institutes, and from 1946-1949, voluntary health organizations moved Congress to create institutes for research on mental health, dental diseases, and heart disease. In 1948, language in the National Heart Act made the name of the umbrella organization the National Institutes of Health. 2) The 1944 PHS Act authorized NIH to conduct clinical research, and after the war Congress provided funding to build a research hospital, now called the Warren Grant Magnuson Clinical Center on the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland. The Center which opened in 1953 with 540 beds was designed to bring research laboratories into close proximity with hospital wards in order to promote productive collaboration between laboratory scientists and clinicians. (Photo: National Archives and Records Administration photograph, courtesy of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, New York)

The NIH today, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is the primary Federal agency for conducting and supporting medical research and is composed of 27 Institutes and Centers, providing leadership and financial support to researchers in every state and throughout the world.

1890 -- Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences founded.

In 1890 The Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences founded a Biological Laboratory at Cold Spring Harbor. Today, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) is a leading research and educational institution with research programs focusing on cancer, neurobiology, plant genetics, genomics and bioinformatics, and a broad educational mission, including the recently established Watson School of Biological Sciences.

1897 -- New York State Pathological Laboratory (Roswell Park Cancer Institute) founded.

In 1897, New York State Pathological Laboratory now known as the Roswell Park Cancer Institute was founded by Dr. Roswell Park and Mr. Edward H. Butler, publisher of the Buffalo Evening News, who asked the New York State Legislature to introduce a bill that would provide a $7,500 grant to establish a cancer research laboratory in the University of Buffalo -- the nation’s first comprehensive cancer care center.

Today, Roswell Park Cancer Institute is a National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center and a source of many advances in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. The Institute's new Center for Genetics and Pharmacology adjoining the University at Buffalo's Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences, and the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute as part of a comprehensive Life Sciences Complex, is creating fertile ground for inquiry and the sharing of information locally and globally.

1901 -- Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (Rockefeller University) founded.

In 1901 The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research became the first institution in the U.S. dedicated to biomedical research and understanding the underlying causes of disease. The Institute's founding resulted in part as a result of personal tragedy after John D. Rockefeller's grandson (also the grandson of Cyrus McCormick) died from scarlet fever in January 1901, and Rockefeller moved to formalize plans for a research center that he had been discussing for several years with his advisor Frederick T. Gates, son John D. Rockefeller Jr. and physicians L. Emmett Holt and Christian Herter (former students of William Henry Welch who was the Institute's president of the board of directors from 1901-1932).

At the time of Institute's founding, infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, diphtheria and typhoid fever were considered the greatest known threats to human health. New research centers in Europe, including the Koch and Pasteur Institutes, were successfully applying laboratory science to understanding disease. The Rockefeller Institute initially awarded grants to study health concerns, including bacteria contamination in New York City's milk supply. In 1906, the Institute moved from a temporary faciliuty to new laboratories located on the site of the former Schermerhorn farm at York Avenue (then called Avenue A) and 66th Street.

In 1955, Rockefeller expanded its mission to include education, admitting its first class of graduate students, it granted its first doctoral degrees in 1959. In 1965, The Rockefeller Institute became The Rockefeller University, further broadening its research mandate. In 1972, the University began its collaboration with Cornell University offering graduate students a M.D.- Ph.D. program. In the 1960s and 1970s, Institute immunologists and protein chemists made Nobel Prize-winning contributions in determining the chemical structure of antibodies–key immune-system molecules–and inventing new methods for studying and synthesizing protein molecules.

In 2003, Nobel laureate Sir Paul Nurse became the ninth president of Rockefeller University. He was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries of key regulators of the cell cycle.

Today, Rockefeller University researchers study antibiotics resistant bacteria, multidrug treatments for AIDS, Alzheimer’s, human genetics, molecular biology, neuroscience, protein chemistry, and much more.

1912 -- Alexis Carrel awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine.

1918 -- Spanish Influenza Pandemic.

It is estimated that between 25 and 40 million people died from the the influenza outbreak that began in 1918, swept across America in a week and around the world in three months. In all, between 500,000 and 700,000 Americans --civilians and soldiers-- died from the influenza, more than were lost in World War I, II, and the Korean and Viet Nam wars combined.

Latest Findings: In September 2004, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded a five-year, $12.5 million grant to five institutions that will collaborate to study genes constructed from 1918 flu-virus particles salvaged from the bodies of World War I soldiers and the exhumed Brevig Mission, Alaska resident. The Institutions include the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Washington, D.C.; Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York; Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and the University of Washington. The ultimate goal is to use knowledge gained from the study to develop vaccines, influenza medications and diagnostic tests to prevent a similar influenza outbreak.

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1930 -- Karl Landsteiner awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine.

1933 -- Thomas Hunt Morgan awarded Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his chromosome theory of heredity.

1934 -- George Hoyt Whipple awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine.

1944 -- Herbert Spencer Gasser awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine.

1945 -- Sloan-Kettering Institute founded.

In 1945 Sloan-Kettering Institute (SKI) founded by philanthropist and industrialist Alfred P. Sloan, and Charles F. Kettering, inventor and industrialist on New York City's Upper Eastside as a cancer research center.

In 1980, Sloan-Kettering Institute , Memorial Hospital, and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center were unified into a single institution. Today, Today, Sloan-Kettering Institute is one of nations leading cancer research centers.

1947 -- Transistor invented at AT&T's Bell Laboratories.

The transistor, the invention that marked the dawn of the information age, was invented by John Bardeen, William Shockley and Walter Brattain at AT&T's Bell Laboratories. Bardeen, Shockley and Brattain were awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery of the transistor effect.

Transistors have become an invisible technology that is part of almost every electronic device. Every major information age innovation was made possible by the transistor and its application can be found all around us. (Photos: © The Nobel Foundation)

1947 -- Brookhaven National Laboratory founded.

In 1947, Brookhaven National Laboratory was founded as a nonprofit corporation to establish a nuclear-science facility in a remote surplus army base location on Long Island. On March 21, 1947, the U.S. War Department transferred the site of Camp Upton on Long Island to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), the federal agency that oversaw the founding of Brookhaven National Laboratory and predecessor to the present U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

Brookhaven's mission was to promote basic research in the physical, chemical, biological and engineering aspects of atomic sciences, and design, construct and operate large scale scientific equipment that individual institutions could not afford to develop on their own. Today, Brookhaven Lab is one of ten national laboratories under DOE’s Office of Science, which provides the majority of the Laboratory’s research dollars and direction.

1947 -- Carl Ferdinand and Gerty Theresa Cori awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology.

1953 -- Double helix structure of DNA revealed.

The double helix structure of DNA, the hereditary molecule is revealed by two scientists, James D. Watson and Francis Crick. This is one of the key discoveries of the century. Watson and Crick shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine with Maurice Wilkins for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nuclear acids and its significance for information transfer in living material.

Rosalind Franklin, whose work contributed to the discovery, died before this date and the rules do not allow a Nobel Prize to be awarded posthumously. (Photos: © The Nobel Foundation)

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1958 -- Integrated circuit invented.

1958 -- George Wells Beadle awarded Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

1961 -- President John F. Kennedy expands U.S. Space Program

1966 -- Peyton Rous awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine.

1967 -- Haldan Keffer Hartline and George Wald awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine.

1969 -- Man walks on the moon.

An important benefit of the Apollo Lunar Program and other NASA programs is the ever-growing pipeline of technology that improves human and veterinary healthcare diagnostics and therapeutics.

1969 -- Victor McKusick publishes "Mendelian Inheritance in Man".

Victor McKusick, widely acknowledged as the father of medical genetics, spent his career studying the genetic basis of diseases and disorders with the belief that such an understanding could lead to new methods of diagnosis and treatment. He studied, identified, and mapped genes responsible for inherited conditions such as Marfan syndrome and dwarfism (specifically in Amish communities). In 1969, he proposed the idea of mapping the human genome, over 30 years before the Human Genome Project was established.

McKusick, a graduate of Johns Hopkins (M.D. 1946), spent his entire career there and founded the Division of Medical Genetics in 1957, the first research center and clinic of its kind. In 1969 he published the 1st edition of his book "Mendelian Inheritance of Man", one of the most comprehensive collections of inherited disease genes. In 2002, McKusick received the highest scientific honor in the U.S., the National Medal of Science.

1969 -- Alfred D. Hershey awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine.

1971 -- NASDAQ Stock Market founded.

Nasdaq, founded February 8, 1971, is now the largest U.S. electronic stock market. With approximately 3,300 companies, it lists more companies and, on average, trades more shares per day than any other U.S. market. NASDAQ is home to companies that are leaders across all areas of business including technology, retail, communications, financial services, transportation, media, biotechnology, medical device, and pharmaceutical.

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1972 -- Stanford Moore and William H. Stein awarded Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

1972 -- Gerald Maurice Edelman awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine.

1973 -- Recombinant DNA perfected.

1974 -- Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA).

John N. Erlenborn, the ranking Republican on the House Committee, was responsible for bringing the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) to a floor vote, and is one of the ERISA’s "Founding Fathers." Together with Senator Jacob Javits (R-NY), Senator Pete Williams (D-NJ) and Congressman John Dent (D-PA), Erlenborn crafted provisions and participated in negotiations that were instrumental to the enactment of ERISA which was - and remains - the single most important legislation governing employee benefit plans in the United States providing an important source of financial investment for the stock market. (Photos: Jacob Javits and Pete Williams courtesy U.S. Senate Historical Office).

1974 -- Albert Claude, Christian de Duve, and George E. Palade awarded Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

1975 -- Monoclonal antibodies produced.

In 1975, Georges Köhler and César Milstein, showed how monoclonal antibodies can be generated by isolating individual fused myeloma cells.

The 1984 Nobel Laureate in Medicine was awarded jointly to: Niels Jerne, Georges Köhler and César Milstein for theories concerning the specificity in development and control of the immune system and the discovery of the principle for production of monoclonal antibodies. (Photos: © The Nobel Foundation)

1975 -- David Baltimore awarded Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

1976 -- Genentech, founder of the biotechnology industry, established.

In 1976, Genentech was founded by venture capitalist Robert Swanson and biochemist Dr. Herbert Boyer. In the early 1970s, Boyer and geneticist Stanley Cohen at Stanford University pioneered recombinant DNA technology. Excited by the breakthrough, Swanson called Boyer who agreed to give the young entrepreneur 10 minutes of his time. Swanson's enthusiasm for the technology resulted in a three hour meeting and at its conclusion, Genentech was born.

Within a few short years Swanson and Boyer invented a new industry - biotechnology. In 1980, Genentech issued its Initial Public Offering (IPO) and raised $35 million with an offering that jumped from $35 a share to a high of $88 after less than an hour on the market. The event was one of the largest stock run-ups ever, and that event set the stage for future biotechnolgy industry offerings.

Genentech was initially broadly focused in three areas including food processing, industrial chemicals, and human health care. In 1982, Eli Lilly & Co. which had acquired worldwide rights to Genenetch's recombinant human insulin (1978) received FDA approval to market the product -- the first biotechnology therapeutic to reach the marketplace.

Beginning in 1983, Genentech became solely focused on human therapeutics and diagnostics, and in 1985, Genentech received approval from FDA to market its first product, Protropin® (somatrem for injection) growth hormone for children with growth hormone deficiency — the first recombinant pharmaceutical product to be manufactured and marketed by a biotechnology company. In 1990, Genentech and Roche Holding Ltd. of Basel, Switzerland completed a $2.1 billion merger. Today, Genentech is among the world's leading biotech companies with multiple protein-based products on the market for serious or life-threatening medical conditions.

1977 -- First human gene cloned.

Walter Gilbert induced bacteria to synthesize insulin and interferon, and Frederick Sanger published the complete sequence of phage FX174. The 1980 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry was awarded jointly to Frederick Sanger and Walter Gilbert for "for their contributions concerning the determination of base sequences in nucleic acids, and to Paul Berg for his fundamental studies of the biochemistry of nucleic acids, with particular regard to recombinant-DNA. (Photos: © The Nobel Foundation)

1980 -- U.S. Supreme Court ruled man-made organism patentable.

1980 -- Bayh-Dole Act provides for university technology transfer.

1980 -- Baruj Benacerraf awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine.

1984 -- Robert Bruce Merrifield awarded Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

1990 -- Human Genome Project established.

The U.S. Human Genome Project was established -- a 13-year effort coordinated by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health. The project, originally planned to last 15 years, was expected to be completed by 2003 due to rapid technological advances.

1993 -- Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) founded.

Biotechnology Industry Organization is the world's largest organization to serve and represent the biotechnology industry. BIO's leadership and service-oriented guidance have helped advance the industry and bring the benefits of biotechnology to people everywhere.

1993 -- Kary B. Mullis awarded Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

1999 -- Günter Blobel awarded Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

2000 -- Paul Greengard and Eric R. Kandel awarded Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

2001 -- Human Genome Project draft sequence published.

2002 -- New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics & Life Sciences founded.

New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics & Life Sciences is a joint effort of research institutions, government, industry and philanthropic organizations to create a hub of life sciences expertise in Upstate New York.

2003 -- Roderick MacKinnon awarded Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

2004 -- Richard Axel awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine.

2005 -- Robert H. Grubbs awarded Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

2009 -- Year of Science launched by the Coalition on the Public Understanding of Science.

Year of Science launched by the Coalition on the Public Understanding of Science (COPUS) will embark on a celebratory journey with you to share how science works, what it is like to be a scientist, and why science matters.

In nearly every state, participants in the celebration will demonstrate how we know about our natural world and why science continues to be so vitally important to our communities, our country, and the world.

Other Resources

Other State & Province BioHistories

Plus the provinces of:

• Alberta
• British Columbia

Other Life Science History Resources

Tell us about New York's BioHistory. If you are aware of a notable event, person,
organization/company or accomplishment that we should include,
please e-mail: BioHistory@InfoResource.org

New York BioHistory(TM) and New York BioEvolution(TM) © 2008 Info.Resource, Inc.