The Biodesign Institute: Biotech 101 - History

The Biodesign Institute: Biotech 101 - History: "Pre-20th Century The pace of scientific discovery accelerated with renewed interest in the sciences during the Renaissance. Renaissance leaders such as Leonardo DaVinci and Galileo Galilei were true artists whose knowledge spanned across several disciplines of art, science and medicine. Glass and lens technology not only allowed Galileo and later Copernicus to peer at the heavens and turn the Ptolemic earth-centric view of the solar system on its head, but also were a preview of later inventions, such as Zacharias Janssen’s invention of the first microscope (a tube with lenses on each end) in 1590. Later, while Newton was exploring his laws of motion, a contempory mathematician, Robert Hooke, was describing the first cells of cork plant tissue in his Micrographia (1665). A decade later, Anton van Leewenhoek, the best microscope maker of his era, made discoveries of the first microscopic forms of life, observing protozoa from pond water and bacteria from his own teeth scrapings. As the 18th century closed, one of the most dramatic experiments in all of medicine occurred, as Edward Jenner developed the first vaccine when he injected a healthy boy with cow pox in order to build immunity to prevent the deadly scourge of smallpox (the word vaccine is derived from the latin word ‘vacca’ meaning cow). The 19 th century began with the coin"