Tennessee 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 Tennessee.

Tell us about Tennessee'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

1794 -- Blout College (Univesity of Tennessee) founded.

The University of Tennessee was founded in 1794 in Knoxville as Blout College. The school was chartered by the Southwest Territorial Legislature two years before Tennessee became a state.

Today, this public land-grant university enrolls over 26,000 students and offers over 300 programs of study in 11 colleges. The university is also the flagship campus of the University of Tennessee System with additional campuses in Memphis, Martin, and Chattanooga. The university is home to a forensic anthropology facility, the University of Tennessee Medical Center, and the College of Medicine.

The university co-manages Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the Department of Energy's largest science and energy lab, with the Battelle Memorial Institute.

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.

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

1873 -- Vanderbilt University founded.

Vanderbilt University was founded in 1873 in Nashville with a $1 million gift from Cornelius Vanderbilt, a shipping and rail magnate from New York.

Today this private research university enrolls over 11,000 students in 10 schools. The university is home to the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, the only Level I Trauma Center in Middle Tennessee.

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.

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

1943 -- Oak Ridge National Laboratory founded.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), founded in 1943 as a part of the secret Manhattan Project to pioneer a method for producing and separating plutonium, is the Department of Energy’s largest science and energy laboratory. Managed since April 2000 by a partnership of the University of Tennessee and Battelle.

During the 1950s and 1960s and with the creation of DOE in the 1970s, ORNL became an international center for the study of nuclear energy and related research in the physical and life sciences. By the turn of the century the laboratory supported the nation with a peacetime science and technology mission that was just as important as, but very different from, the days of the Manhattan Project.

Today, ORNL has a staff of more than 4,200 and annually hosts approximately 3,000 guest researchers who spend two weeks or longer in Oak Ridge. ORNL funding exceeds $1 billion. ORNL is in the final stages of a $350 million project to provide a modern campus for the next generation of great science. A unique combination of federal, state, and private funds is supporting the construction of 13 new facilities. Included in these new facilities are the Laboratory for Comparative and Functional Genomics, the Nanoscience Center, the Advanced Microscopy Laboratory, the Office of Science’s Leadership Computing Facility for unclassified high-performance computing, and the state-funded joint institutes for computational sciences, biological sciences, and neutron sciences.

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)

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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1953 -- University of Tennessee Medical Center founded.

University of Tennessee Medical Center was founded in 1953 with Governor Frank Clement leading the groundbreaking ceremonies for the new research center/hospital. The University of Tennessee Memorial Hospital opened its doors in 1956 with the first patients transported to the new facility from Knoxville General.

Today, the UT Medical Center is a major medical center that provides superior treatments and healthcare support to residents of the East Tennessee region as well as offering expert care as the area’s only Level I Trauma Center. The hospital is a tertiary facility, offering general, specialty and sub-specialty care in a full range of medical fields, including specialties with heart, lung, vascular, brain, spine, childbirth and cancer as well as many other conditions.

1958 -- Integrated circuit invented.

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

1962 -- St. Jude Children's Research Hospital founded.

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, located in Memphis and founded in 1962 by the late entertainer Danny Thomas, is one of the world's premier centers for research and treatment of catastrophic diseases in children, primarily pediatric cancers.

The mission of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is to advance cures, and means of prevention, for pediatric catastrophic diseases through research and treatment. Consistent with the vision of our Founder Danny Thomas, no child is denied treatment based on race, religion or a family's ability to pay. Research efforts are directed at understanding the molecular, genetic and chemical bases of catastrophic diseases in children, identifying cures for such diseases and promoting their prevention. Research is focused specifically on cancers, acquired and inherited immunodeficiencies, infectious diseases and genetic disorders. Current basic and clinical research at St. Jude includes work in gene therapy, bone marrow transplant, chemotherapy, the biochemistry of normal and cancerous cells, radiation treatment, blood diseases, resistance to therapy, viruses, hereditary diseases, influenza, pediatric AIDS and psychological effects of catastrophic diseases.

In 2002, another dream of Danny Thomas became a reality when the Children's Cancer Center of Lebanon was established in Beirut. The center is an affiliate of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and works in association with the American University of Beirut Medical Center.

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.

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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1971 -- Earl Sutherland, Jr. awarded Nobel Prize in Physiology or 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).

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)

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.

1986 -- Center for Environmental Biotechnology founded.

Center for Environmental Biotechnology (CEB), at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, was established in 1986 to foster a multidisciplinary approach for training the next generation of environmental scientists and solving environmental problems through biotechnology. The CEB was first in the nation to create a graduate research training program that truly integrates the sciences and engineering disciplines needed to produce trained professionals in the field. This was accomplished through grass root efforts of UT and ORNL faculty and staff with conceptual support by department heads and administrators at UT.

The CEB has achieved Research Center-of-Excellence status by the University of Tennessee in order to catalyze and advance a new research agenda that "pushes-the-envelope" of creative and pioneering research. This fundamental new research revolutionizes the ability to dissect, monitor and control processes at the molecular level to achieve real-time information and computational analysis in complex bio-environmental systems.

Today, the CEB is composed of nearly 40 faculty, adjunct faculty, and research assistant professors across 10 departments that conduct research in areas ranging from BioMicroElectronics and BioEnvironmental Systems to BioTechnical Systems, BioAnalytical Systems, and Education & Outreach.

1986 -- Stanley Cohen awarded Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

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.

1996 -- Peter Doherty awarded Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

1999 -- Tennessee Biotechnology Association founded.

Tennessee Biotechnology Association, founded in 1999, is a statewide organization of leading scientists, researchers, academicians, clinicians, legislators and business professionals working to foster, develop and support the life sciences in Tennessee.

2001 -- Human Genome Project draft sequence published.

2001 -- Memphis Bioworks Foundation founded.

Memphis Bioworks Foundation, founded in 2001 as a nonprofit organization, leads an unprecedented collaboration of public, private, academic, and government organizations aligned behind a common goal. The mission of Memphis Bioworks is to build upon the bioscience industry already thriving in the Memphis economy and to establish the area as an internationally recognized center for the development and commercialization of biomedical technology.

UT-Baptist Research Park, established by the Memphis Bioworks Foundation, began with the Baptist Memorial Health Care donation of 1.3 million square feet of prime urban property in the Medical Center district. The campus will develop over a 10-year period into a six-building research, incubator, and commercial center dedicated to the bioscience industry. Another distinguishing feature is that, with support from the Memphis Bioworks Foundation, the National Institute of Health awarded the University of Tennessee Health Science Center a $18 million construction grant to build a Regional Biocontainment Laboratory - one of only six in the country.

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Tell us about Tennessee'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