Bioengineering
Definition The modification of organisms by
means of biological techniques, especially by
the direct manipulation of genetic material
The 1980’s saw rapid advances in the basic techniques of
genetic manipulation and their application to the creation
of new and modified organisms. These advances promised
a revolution in various fields of technology, ranging from
agriculture to health care.
Two significant events occurred in 1980 that trans-
formed the future potential of bioengineering. One
was the development of a technique for causing
strands of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) to multiply
rapidly by means of a polymerase chain reaction
(PCR); the other was the decision of the U.S. Su-
preme Court to allow the patenting of an organ-
ism—an “oil-eating” bacterium—produced by ge-
netic modification. DNA multiplication made it
possible to develop fundamental techniques that fa-
cilitated DNA analysis, which would lead in turn to
the use of DNA fingerprinting in forensic science
and would enable researchers to sequence the hu-
man genome. The application of patent law to ge-
netic engineering, meanwhile, made available lavish
financial backing to biotechnology companies and
generated a stock-market boom as spectacular as the
one from which information technology companies
benefited.
Animals and Genetic Engineering Prior to the
1980’s, successful experiments in genetic engineer-
ing had been virtually restricted to the transforma-
tion of bacteria. In 1981, however, Ohio University
conducted experiments on mice, producing the first
transgenic animals (that is, animals incorporating
genes from another species). In 1984, Harvard Uni-
versity successfully applied for a patent on an “onco-
mouse” that had been genetically modified to be sus-
ceptible to a kind of human cancer. The oncomouse
became the first of a rapidly expanding population
of “mouse models” afflicted with significant human
genetic deficiency diseases. The technique allowed
each disease’s pathology to be carefully analyzed,
tracked, and tested against potential treatments.
The genetic modification of animals was depen-
dent on methods of in vitro fertilization (IVF) that
were also applied to the treatment of human infertil-
ity. The first test-tube baby had been born in 1978;
tens of thousands more followed in the 1980’s, when
the technique was applied as an accepted method of
assisting couples who had difficulty conceiving. The
decade also saw a rapid growth in surrogate mother-
hood, in which embryos produced by IVF were im-
planted in the womb of another woman when the bi-
ological mother was unable to carry and bear her
child. The freezing of embryos for storage became
commonplace, resulting in fervent ethical debates
regarding the fate of “spare” embryos made redun-
dant by the success of earlier IVF treatments. The
multiplication of embryos by splitting—a kind of
cloning—also became practicable; it was almost ex-
clusively applied in the 1980’s to animal embryos,
but ethical discussions leapt ahead in anticipation of
human splitting.Patenting Life Forms In 1983, the first patents were
granted on genetically modified plants, initially for
plants equipped with “marker genes,” which allowed
successfully transformed individuals to be isolated
by virtue of their immunity to an antibiotic. By 1985,
however, the first U.S. field trials were licensed for
crop plants—tomatoes and tobacco—that had been
genetically modified to resist insect pests and herbi-
cides. The year 1989 saw the development of the first
transgenic plants with genes coding for antibodies
against human diseases (“plantigens”), suggesting
the possibility of a new kind of pharmaceutical farm-
ing (“pharming”). The production of transgenic oil-
seed rape plants whose storage protein contained an
endorphin—a natural painkiller—was also reported
in 1989.
The genetic modification of food plants, aggres-
sively promoted by Monsanto—a chemical company
that had invested heavily in the genetic modification
of such plants as corn, soya, and potatoes—caused
considerable alarm within the environmental move-
ment, some of whose key organizations began cam-
paigning vigorously against further field trials. The
arrival of Calgene’s Flavr Savr tomato—modified to
resist decay—on supermarket shelves in the mid-
1980’s excited considerable resistance to so-called
Frankenstein foods. Similar opposition developed
to bioengineering experiments in animal hus-
bandry, such as the treatment of dairy cattle with
genetically modified growth hormones, which were
developed in 1982 and forcefully marketed by Mon-
santo in the United States and Canada in 1985-1986.
Soon, such products were met with a growing resis-110 Bioengineering The Eighties in America