Introduction to the Exhibit 1998 marked the 25th anniversary of the development of recombinant DNA by Stanley N. Cohen of Stanford University and Herbert W. Boyer of the University of California, San Francisco. This invention made it possible to recombine and clone DNA, thus providing basic scientists with a simple and precise method for studying the structure and function of genes of higher and lower organisms. Recombinant DNA technology, as it came to be known, also became a foundation of the biotechnology industry now flourishing in the Bay Area and around the world. The exhibit celebrates this discovery and suggests its broad implications for science, society, and industry.
Displays featuring three Bay Area biotechnology companies round out the exhibit.
From the hundreds of local firms in this center of the biotechnology industry we selected Chiron Corporation, Genentech, Inc., and Tularik, Inc., because of their close ties to the University of California and because we have conducted oral histories with their founders under the auspices of The Bancroft Library's Program in the History of the Biological Sciences and Biotechnology. The exhibit also demonstrates that the current debate over the ethics of human cloning and the patenting of genes reaches back at least as far as the recombinant DNA controversy of the 1970s and the Cohen-Boyer patents of the 1980s. On a lighter note, Larry Gonick's and Mark Wheelis' Cartoon Guide to Genetics reflects public interest in the revolution in 20 th century biology as only humor can. We begin with their pages, as they provide all visitors a common point of entry to a very complex subject. All rights reserved.