A 1951 science fiction novel used the phrase genetic engineering before DNA was understood
Jack Williamson's novel Dragon's Island talked about genetic engineering in 1951, a year before Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase confirmed DNA's role in heredity and two years before the double helix was described. The term itself was older still, coined in 1934 by the Russian-born geneticist Nikolay Timofeev-Ressovsky in a scientific paper.
Genetic engineering means directly altering an organism's genes with technology, whether by adding DNA, removing it or editing it in place. Traditional breeding crosses organisms repeatedly and selects the best offspring; engineering instead takes a specific gene from one organism and delivers it to another. That is much faster, can draw on genes from any living thing, even across the great domains of life, and avoids dragging along unwanted genes. Humans have reshaped species through selective breeding for thousands of years, but direct DNA manipulation dates only from the 1970s.
The milestones came quickly. In 1972 Paul Berg built the first recombinant DNA molecule by splicing together genetic material from two viruses, the lambda virus and SV40, which infects monkeys. In 1973 Herbert Boyer and Stanley Cohen inserted antibiotic resistance genes into a bacterium, creating the first genetically modified organism, and in 1974 Rudolf Jaenisch introduced foreign DNA into a mouse embryo. Worried scientists met at the Asilomar Conference in 1975 and recommended government oversight until the technology was judged safe.
Commercial use followed. Boyer and Robert Swanson founded Genentech, the first genetic engineering company, in 1976; it announced engineered human insulin in 1978, and bacterial insulin won approval in 1982. The Flavr Savr tomato, designed to last longer on the shelf, went on sale in 1994, and the GloFish became the first engineered pet in 2003. Most modern GM crops, though, are built to resist insects and herbicides.
The same toolkit makes vaccines, hormones and enzymes for detergents and cheese, and it lets researchers knock out genes to study their function. Gene therapy aims to replace faulty genes in people with working ones. GM crops remain the most contested use, and concerns about gene flow, food supply control and patents led to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, adopted in 2000, with rules differing sharply between the United States and Europe.
Source: Genetic engineering
