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WhatIsBiotechnology is a leading educational and public engagement platform that brings together the stories about the sciences, people and places that have enabled biotechnology to transform medicine and the world we live in today

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The COVID-19 pandemic

As part of our mission to educate we cover the COVID-19 pandemic focusing on the diagnostics, vaccines and treatments being developed across the world and the scientists at the front of the battle to identify and treat the virus. Click here to access those COVID-19 related resources.

Women in biotechnology

We are pleased to publish some reflections from women about what they see as the most important change for women in the life sciences and healthcare sector in recent years. Click here to see their comments and contribute your own reflections. This is part of an ongoing public engagement project to champion the contributions of women in the biomedical sciences. Click here to find out more about this project. Find out about some of the hidden women at the cutting edge of the science by visiting our profiles of some of the women who have helped shape biotechnology. Click here to see a timeline of initiatives implemented to promote gender equality in the biomedical sciences. Click here to see a timeline of some some key biomedical discoveries in which women played a pivotal role.

This day in biotechnology

The following events took place on this day (17th September) in years past:

1734-09-17T00:00:00+0000 Thomas Fuller died (1734) Fuller was an English physician who practised in Sevenoaks, Kent. Long before the discovery of microbes, Fuller recognised that diseases like measles and smallpox were caused by the 'venom' of a particular organism. He was also one of the first to recognise the specificness of an infection and immunity. Fuller collected and published the best medicines in his Pharmacopoiea, which appeared in at least 12 editions. He was also an early advocate of smallpox inoculation. Sciences: Immunology, Vaccine.

1806-09-17T00:00:00+0000 Guillaume-Benjamin-Amand Duchenne was born in Boulogne, France (1806) Duchenne, a neurologist, was the first to describe several nervous and muscular disorders and develop medical treatments for them. He provided the first accounts of muscular atrophy and paralysis caused by nerve disorders. This included tabes dorsalis, or locomotor ataxia, a muscular atrophy caused by a degeneration of the dorsal columns of the spinal cord and sensory nerve trunks. He also identified the muscular dystrophy now immortalised with his name. The condition , a severe form of progressive muscle weakness, was first observed by Duchenne in 13 young boys. Duchesne also developed the use of deep tissue biopsy for diagnosis and advanced the science of electro-physiology and electro-therapy. Sciences: Neuroscience.

1905-09-17T00:00:00+0000 Rockefeller University Merrill W Chase born in Providence, RI, USA (1905) Chase was an immunologist who in the early 1940s discovered that white blood cells trigger the immune response in the body confronting a foreign invader. His finding laid to rest the belief that antibodies by themselves could protect the body from allergies and pathogens. Chase also uncovered the second arm of the immune system, known as cell-mediated immunity, paving the way to the discovery of lymphocyte cells and B and T cells. Sciences: Antibodies, Immunology.

1922-09-17T00:00:00+0000 Hammersmith Hospital Naomi Datta was born in London, UK (1922) Datta was a microbial geneticist who showed that multi-antibiotic resistance was transferred between bacteria by plasmids. She first made the connection in 1959 after investigating a severe outbreak of Salmonella typhimurium phage-type 27 at Hammersmith Hospital where she worked. This involved an examination of 309 cultures, of which she found 25 were drug resistant, eight of which were resistant to Streptomycin which had been used to treat the patients. She concluded that the antibiotic resistance developed over time because the earlier cultures of the salmonella typhimurium infection (from the start of the outbreak) were not drug resistant. Sciences: Antimicrobial resistance.

1999-09-17T00:00:00+0000 University of Pennsylvania Death of the first patient in a gene therapy trial prompted major setback for the field (1999) Jesse Gelsinger, an 18 year old, died after suffering a severe immune response to an adenoviral vector in a dose escalation trial testing gene therapy for ornithine transcarbamylase deficiency, an inherited metabolic disorder. His death led to a major reappraisal of gene therapy and stricter regulations for clinical trials investigating gene therapy. Sciences: Gene therapy.

2013-09-17T00:00:00+0000 Cambridge University, Sanofi European Commission approved Alemtuzumab (Lemtrada) for MS treatment (2013) Alemtuzumab was originally developed by Herman Waldmann as a laboratory tool to investigate immune tolerance. It soon became the first humanised monoclonal antibody drug. Initially alemtuzumab proved effective for helping prevent graft-versus host disease in transplant patients. It subsequently went on to be approved as a treatment for leukaemia and then many years later it was shown to be effective against multiple sclerosis. Sciences: Monoclonal antibodies.

The sciences

Visit our science section to explore some of the most important sciences behind biotechnology and medicine including: Immune checkpoint inhibitors. Checkpoint inhibitors are drugs that help release the brakes cancer cells put on the immune system to prevent their destruction. This is usually achieved with an antibody which is used to block certain proteins carried on the surface of cancer cells that prevent their recognition by the immune system and hence their destruction. In 2015 Jimmy Carter, the former president of the US, announced he was free of melanoma that had spread to his liver and brain. He had improved following treatment with an immune checkpoint inhibitor drug. How do checkpoint inhibitors work? Such therapy is designed to block the biological pathways cancer cells use to disguise themselves from the immune system and prevent their destruction. Immune checkpoint inhibitors are now considered one of the most promising avenues for the treatment of advanced cancer. Their development grew out of research to understand the regulation of immune responses. Click here to learn more about immune checkpoint inhibitors. click here to browse all the sciences

Special Exhibitions

Ever wanted to tread in the footsteps of scientists to understand how they come up with new ideas in the laboratory and translate these into new products for patients? You can do this by visiting our special exhibitions section. Using photographs, laboratory notebooks and other historical sources, these exhibitions bring to life some of this process. See for yourself some of the ups and downs the scientists have faced along the way.

Drug discovery and development is a very complex process. Getting a drug to market can take years, even decades, and involves many scientific, financial and regulatory hurdles. This makes drug discovery and development a highly risky and a long and expensive business. Many drugs that appear promising in the laboratory fall by the wayside in clinical trials because they prove unsafe or ineffective. A great deal of money can thus be invested by a company in a drug candidate with little return. In this exhibition we follow the complex process of drug discovery and development through the story of Seattle Genetics, a small American biotechnology company set up in 1998 to develop cancer therapeutics. As the exhibition reveals, the success of drug development is not only reliant on scientific and clinical progress. Securing enough funding and the right partners is also essential to the process. Click here to view the exhibition

One of the most important tools in biotechnology and medicine today is DNA sequencing, invented by Frederick Sanger, a British biochemist. This exhibition follows the journey of Sanger starting in the 1940s when he began looking for ways to decipher the composition of proteins through to his development of DNA sequencing in the 1970s. Come see the time-consuming and painstaking steps Sanger went through to perfect the DNA sequencing technique and the many different areas of medicine where DNA sequencing is now being applied all the way from the Human Genome Project through to cancer and antimicrobial resistance.

Click here to view the exhibition

A third of all new medicines introduced into the world today are monoclonal antibodies, many of which go on to become blockbuster drugs. This exhibition is the story of how one specific monoclonal antibody, the oldest humanised monoclonal antibody created with therapeutic potential, moved from the laboratory bench through to the clinic and the impact it has had on patients' lives. The antibody, which originated from the CAMbridge PATHology family of antibodies, started life in 1979 not as a therapeutic, but as a laboratory tool for understanding the immune system. Within a short time, however, the antibody, YTH66.9, was being used to improve the success of bone marrow transplants and as a treatment for leukaemia, lymphoma, vasculitis, organ transplants and multiple sclerosis. Highlighting the many twists and turns that this monoclonal antibody took over time, this exhibition explores the multitude of actors and events involved in the making of a biotechnology drug. Click here to view the exhibition

Today monoclonal antibodies are indispensable to medicine. They are not only used as therapeutics, comprising six out of ten of the best selling drugs in the world, but are also critical to unravelling the pathways of disease and integral components of diagnostic tests. Yet, the story of how these unsung microscopic heroes came into the world and helped change healthcare remains largely untold. The journey of monoclonal antibodies all started when an Argentinian émigré called César Milstein arrived at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, the same laboratory where Watson and Crick discovered the structure of DNA. This exhibition tells the story of how Milstein came to develop monoclonal antibodies and demonstrated their clinical application for the first time. Click here to view the exhibition

The people

Exploring the lives and works of the leading people from across the world like Brigitte Askonas (pictured) whose efforts have helped build biotechnology into a world changing science. Brigitte Askonas (Born:1923-04-01T00:00:00+00001923 - Died: 2013-01-09T00:00:00+00002013) Askonas co-developed one of the first systems for the cloning of antibody-forming B cells in vivo, some of the earliest monoclonal antibodies. She was also one of the first scientists to isolate and clone virus specific T lymphocytes, laying the foundation for defining different influenza sub-sets and improving vaccines. Click here to learn more about Brigitte Askonas. click here to browse all the people

The places

Exploring the places and institutions, and people working in them, across the world like Laboratory of Molecular Biology (pictured) where the science of biotechnology has been developed. A pioneer in the field of molecular biology, the Laboratory of Molecular Biology was the place where the helix-structure of DNA was finally determined and where the first long-surviving monoclonal antibodies were created. Click here to learn more about Laboratory of Molecular Biology. click here to browse all the places

Timeline

An ever-growing list of events, currently 2217 events, that have contributed to the growth of biotechnology. Click here to browse the timeline. For timelines for specific sciences click here: antibodies, CRISPR-Cas9, genetics, gene therapy, immunotherapy, monoclonal antibodies, vaccines, virology. For timelines for specific places click here: Cambridge University, Harvard University, The Laboratory of Molecular Biology, The Pasteur Institute, Rockefeller University, The Wistar Institute. For timelines for specific people click here: Cesar Milstein, Fred Sanger, Donall Thomas, Herman Waldmann.

The untold story of monoclonal antibodies

Yale University Press 2015-06-30 9780300167733 Yale University Press has announced the publication of The Lock and Key of Medicine: Monoclonal Antibodies and the Transformation of Healthcare by Lara V. Marks (Yale University Press, Amazon). Forty years ago, viable monoclonal antibodies, imperceptibly small 'magic bullets', became available for the first time. First produced in 1975 by César Milstein and Georges Köhler at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England (where Watson and Crick unraveled the structure of DNA), Mabs have had a phenomenally far-reaching effect on our society and daily life. The Lock and Key of Medicine is the first book to tell the extraordinary yet unheralded history of monoclonal antibodies, or Mabs. Though unfamiliar to most nonscientists, these microscopic protein molecules are everywhere, quietly shaping our lives and healthcare. They have radically changed understandings of the pathways of disease, enabling faster, cheaper, and more accurate clinical diagnostic testing. Historian of medicine Lara V. Marks recounts the risks and opposition that a daring handful of individuals faced while discovering and developing Mabs, and she addresses the related scientific, medical, technological, business, and social challenges that arose. She offers a saga of entrepreneurs who ultimately changed the healthcare landscape and brought untold relief to millions of patients. Even so, controversies over Mabs remain, which the author explores through the current debates on their cost-effectiveness.

Engineering Health: How Biotechnology Changed Medicine

The Royal Society of Chemistry 2017-10-27 978-1-78262-084-6 The Royal Society of Chemistry has announced the publication of Engineering Health: How Biotechnology Changed Medicine edited by Lara V. Marks (The Royal Society of Chemistry). Written in an accessible style, experts trace the development of biotechnologies like stem cells, gene therapy, monoclonal antibodies and synthetic biology and how these are reshaping the diagnostic and therapeutic landscape. Building on material from this website, this book shows the challenges behind the application of biotechnology to medicine. With medicines increasingly shifting from small organic molecules to large, complex structures, such as therapeutic proteins, drugs have become more difficult to make, administer and regulate. This book will intrigue anyone interested in the past, present and future of how we engineer better health for ourselves. The rise of biotechnology has major implications for how and where drugs are manufactured, the cost of medicine and how far society is prepared to go to combat disease.

Celebrating the first publication of monoclonal antibodies

It is now over 40 years since César Milstein and Georges Kohler published their technique for producing monoclonal antibodies. To celebrate the occasion we invite you to watch the film Un Fuegito about the life and work of Milstein, produced by Ana Fraile, Pulpofilms. The film, which you can find on vimeo.com, has been released to help raise funds for a new educational film to promote greater understanding about monoclonal antibodies and how they have transformed the lives of millions of patients across the world.

The Debate: Genome editing

Scientists have recently begun to adopt a new technique for genetic engineering, called CRISPR-Cas9, in a wide number fields ranging from agriculture to medicine. Part of its attraction is that it permits genetic engineering on an unprecedented scale and at a very low cost. The technique is already being used in a variety of fields (click here for more information about CRISPR-Cas9). But because of its potential to modify DNA in human embryos, it has prompted calls for a public debate about where the technology should be applied. Researchers working with WhatIsBiotechnology.org recently ran a pilot survey to gather people's views on the new technology. Dr Lara Marks, Managing Editor of WhatisBiotechnology.org and historian of medicine and Dr Silvia Camporesi, bioethicist at King's College London, led the project. Some 567 people contributed to the debate. The analysis of their contributions is available on this page.

Forthcoming projects

We are developing a number of new and exciting projects with highly talented partners and collaborators. These include one with Professor Gordon Dougan and his team at Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre to raise awareness about the rise of antimicrobial resistance and the efforts scientists are now taking to curb its spread in both the hospital setting and out in the community and another with St Saviour's and St Olave's School and Create Fertility to bring to life the history behind IVF to improve young people’s understanding about the challenge of infertility and the science behind its treatment. We are also developing a project with the Education Development Center and the Hepatitis B Foundation to raise greater awareness about how vaccines are made and work to prevent disease, starting with the story of the hepatitis B vaccine.