Genetic Engineering and the University of Washington

By Jared Keefer

Since the advent of genetic engineering, it has allowed us to live in a way that the human race has never seen before. We have vastly increased our collective knowledge about our own inner workings, we have been able to provide vaccines and therapies for numerous illnesses. These two things have ultimately increased our average life span and allowed the human race to take research in new, previously unheard of ways.
Genetic engineering and the University of Washington have had a relationship that spans over three decades. Since the advent of restriction enzymes in 1970, the University of Washington has always had a major role in this technology.

Timeline of Genetic Engineering at UW

1977 First to prove that DNA from a plasmid in Agrobacterium was transferred and integrated into plant DNA and first genetic map of TI plasmid.
1981 Hepatitis B vaccine
1982 First transgenic animal ever produced
1985 EPO, which counteracts anemia, was genetically engineered
1987 First to clone the gene for the insecticide protein, Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt)
The relationship began in 1977 with the usage of restriction enzymes to identify the exact cause of Crown Gall disease in plants. It was shown to be DNA from a particular plasmid that caused in the transfer of DNA from Agrobacterium (Lint to the Agrobacterium page) into host plants. U.W. researchers: Mary-Dell Chilton, Eugene W. Nester, and Milton P. Gordon were also the first to prove that DNA from a plasmid in Agrobacterium (Link to Agrobacterium page) was transferred and integrated into plant DNA and also to figure out the first genetic map of the tumor-inducing plasmids. This experiment yielded the information that allowed humans to begin genetic engineering.
The next major step in genetic engineering here at the University of Washington was in 1981. Researchers Benjamin Hall and Gustav Ammerer developed a vaccine for hepatitis B, one of the world's most common blood-borne viruses. Hepatitis B is one hundred times more contagious than the HIV virus and is transmitted through blood and sexual contact. This was genetic engineering's first great accomplishment. A short three years after the mechanism of transformation was discovered.
In 1982, the first transgenic animal ever, a mouse, was born. This was accomplished by transferring a gene from one animal into the embryo of a mouse so that the gene would be expressed in the mouse and in all its future offspring. Richard Palmiter, UW Department of Biochemistry, in collaboration with Ralph Brinster of the University of Pennsylvania, were the first in the world to accomplish this feat. They were then honored, in 1994, with the Charles Leopold Mayer prize, the highest honor bestowed by the French Academy of Sciences.
The chemical messenger is erythropoietin, or EPO, was genetically engineered in 1985. EPO is a chemical messenger that travels to the bone marrow, where it stimulates the growth of red blood cells. These red blood cells then carry oxygen to our body's tissues and organs to counteract anemia. Joseph W. Eschbach, clinical professor in the UW School of Medicine, John Adamson, formerly of the UW faculty, in conjunction with the Northwest Kidney Center in Seattle, conducted the first trial of genetically engineered EPO in order to correct anemia in kidney dialysis patients.
In 1987, Helen Riaboff Whiteley, UW microbiology professor, was the first to clone the gene for the insecticide protein that occurs naturally in common soil bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). This breakthrough contributed to commercial development of Bt as a biological control agent that is now used extensively against a wide variety of insects.
All of these great feats were accomplished in the first twenty years of genetic engineering. Hormones, such as insulin, the mechanism of transfection, vaccines for diseases, transgenic model organisms and numerous other discoveries, all beneficial advances of knowledge because of genetic engineering and all here at the University of Washington.