California 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 California.

Tell us about California'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

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.

1869 -- University of California founded.

When it first opened its doors in 1869, the University of California (UC) had just 10 faculty members and 38 students. Today, the UC system includes more than 208,000 students and 121,000 faculty and staff, with more than 1.3 million alumni living and working around the world.

UC has ten campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara and manages three U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories: the Lawrence Berkeley laboratory, the Livermore laboratory, and Los Alamos laboratory. UC researchers are pioneers in agriculture, medicine, technology, and the environment, and thousands of California jobs plus billions of dollars in revenues can be traced back to UC discoveries. Many of the state’s leading businesses were either based on technology developed by the university, were founded by faculty or alumni, or are headed by UC graduates.

The University of California's five medical centers support the clinical teaching programs of UC's medical and health sciences schools and receive more than 120,000 inpatient discharges, 239,000 emergency room visits and more than 3.3 million outpatient visits each year. The centers provide a full range of health care services in their communities and are sites for the development and testing of new diagnostic and therapeutic techniques. Collectively, these centers comprise one of the largest health care systems in California and one of the two largest Medi-Cal providers in the state.

1879 -- University of Southern California founded.

University of Southern California (USC) was established in 1978 when Judge Robert Maclay Widney formed a board of trustees and secured a donation of 308 lots of land from three prominent community leaders — Ozro W. Childs, a Protestant horticulturist; former California governor John G. Downey, an Irish-Catholic pharmacist and businessman; and Isaias W. Hellman, a German-Jewish banker and philanthropist. The gift provided land for a campus as well as a source of endowment, the seeds of financial support for the nascent institution.

In 1885, USC’s College of Medicine, the first in Southern California, was established, and in 1897 the college began offering courses in dentistry. A century later, Alfred Mann gave $112.5 million to establish the USC Alfred E. Mann Institute for Biomedical Engineering, and in 1999, USC’s medical school received a $110 million gift and was renamed the Keck School of Medicine of USC.

Today, having completed it's "Building on Excellence" campaign, USC set a new record in higher education by raising $2.85 billion in nine years, and having celebrated its 125th anniversary, USC is the poised to become one of the leading biomedical research universities in the nation.

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.

1891 -- Throop University (Caltech) founded.

Throop University (Caltech) was founded in 1891 by Pasadena philanthropist Amos Throop, and under the guidance of astronomer George Ellery Hale, the first director of the Mount Wilson Observatory, it was transformed into a leading institution for engineering and scientific research and education.

By 1921, Hale was joined by chemist Arthur A. Noyes and physicist Robert A. Millikan who guided the school (renamed the California Institute of Technology) on its current course. For the next 76 years, Millikan and his successors -- Lee DuBridge, Harold Brown, Marvin Goldberger, and Thomas Everhart -- led the Institute to preeminence in the scientific community. During this time programs were added in geology, biology, aeronautics, astronomy, astrophysics, the social sciences, computer science, and computation and neural systems.

During the 1930s, Caltech was renowned for its strength in Drosophila genetics, work pioneered by Thomas Hunt Morgan who came to Caltech in 1928. Morgan's Division of Biology attracted several scientists who would later become Nobel Prize winners, including George Beadle (1958 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine) and Max Delbrück (1969 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine).

Today Caltech, led by David Baltimore, 1975 Nobel Prize winner in physiology or medicine for his discovery of the enzyme reverse transcriptase, is one of the leading institutions in the nation for engineering and scientific research and education.

1891 -- Stanford University founded.

Stanford University was founded in 1891 on land acquired by former California Governor Leland Stanford, a lawyer, pioneeer and entrepreneur who was inspired by the Ivy League schools. In addition to land, the Jane Stanford, Leland's wife who succeeded him after his death in 1893, provided a $11 million endowment to support the construction of the new university.

The Stanford School of Medicine can trace its history to 1858, when Samuel Elias Cooper founded the Far West's first medical school in San Francisco. In 1908, tanford Trustees accepted Cooper Medical College as part of the University, and in 1953 the Trustees made built a new Stanford Medical Center on the main campus that was dedicated in September 1959.

In 1951, the Stanford Research Park was created in response to the demand for industrial land near university resources and an emerging electronics industry tied closely to the prominent electronics department at Stanford. Stanford Research Park is now home to more than 150 companies in electronics, software, biotechnology, and other advanced technology fields. A number of top law firms, financial service firms, strategic consultants, and venture capital companies are also located in the Park. Research and development and service companies now occupy some 10 million square feet in more than 160 buildings.

Today, Stanford is one of the world's leading institutions in medical education, research, and patient treatment and care, the center is home of the Stanford School of Medicine, the Stanford University Hospital, the Stanford University Clinic, and the Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford.

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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1924 -- The Scripps Metabolic Clinic founded.

The Scripps Metabolic Clinic, a predecessor of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), was founded in 1924 by philanthropist Ellen Browning Scripps. TSRI's modern beginnings date to the 1955 establishment of Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation, when a major portion of the Clinic's limited reserves were committed to the construction of a new research facility and to the recruitment of top biomedical scientists. In 1961, Frank Dixon was recruited to La Jolla from Minnesota with four other young scientists, forming the core of what would later become The Scripps Research Institute.

Today, TSRI, one of the country's largest, private, non-profit research organizations, stands at the forefront of basic biomedical science, a vital segment of medical research that seeks to comprehend the most fundamental processes of life. In just three decades the Institute has established a lengthy track record of major contributions to the betterment of health and the human condition.

The Institute has become internationally recognized for its basic research into immunology, molecular and cellular biology, chemistry, neurosciences, autoimmune diseases, cardiovascular diseases, virology and synthetic vaccine development. Particularly significant is the Institute's study of the basic structure and design of biological molecules; in this arena TSRI is among a handful of the world's leading centers.

1931 -- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) founded.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) was founded in 1931 by Ernest Orlando Lawrence, winner of the 1939 Nobel Prize in physics for his invention of the cyclotron, a circular particle accelerator that opened the door to high-energy physics.

Today the Berkeley Lab, located on a 200 acre site in the hills above the University of California's Berkeley campus, is the oldest of the U.S. Department of Energy's National Laboratories. The Lab is managed by the University of California, and has an annual operating budget of more than $500 million and a staff of more than 3,500 employees, including more than 500 students.

The Lab is organized into 17 scientific divisions and conducts research across a wide range of scientific disciplines with key efforts in fundamental studies of the universe; quantitative biology; nanoscience; new energy systems and environmental solutions; and the use of integrated computing as a tool for discovery.

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

1944 -- Joseph Erlanger awarded Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

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)

1951 -- Stanford Research Park founded.

The Stanford Research Park, the nation's first high-tech research park, was created in 1951 in response to the demand for industrial land near university resources and an emerging electronics industry tied closely to the School of Engineering. The first lessee of the Stanford Research Park was Varian Associates. Stanford graduates and professors have founded Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, Cisco Systems, Yahoo! and may other advanced-technology companies.

Today, Stanford Research Park encompasses 700 acres (283 hectares) and is home to more than 150 companies in electronics, software, biotechnology, and other advanced technology fields. A number of top law firms, financial service firms, strategic consultants, and venture capital companies are also located in the Park. Research and development and service companies now occupy some 10 million square feet in more than 160 buildings.

1952 -- University of California Radiation Laboratory (Livermore) founded.

The University of California Radiation Laboratory, now known as the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) was founded in 1952 as part of the UC Berkeley Radiation Laboratory on the one-square-mile site of a World War II naval air training station. The creation of the Laboratory was triggered by the detonation of the first Russian atomic bomb in 1949 and fear of Soviet advances toward a hydrogen bomb. In 1958, after the death of E. O. Lawrence, the Livermore Lab was renamed Lawrence Radiation Laboratory.

In 1963, the Atomic Energy Commission launched its first biomedical and environmental research program at Livermore to study the effects of radiation on humans. Today, Livermore is one of the world's premier scientific centers, where cutting-edge science and engineering in the interest of national security is used to break new ground in other areas of national importance, including energy, biomedicine, and environmental science.

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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1954 -- Linus Carl Pauling awarded Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Linus Carl Pauling of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) was awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his research into the nature of the chemical bond and its application to the elucidation of the structure of complex substances.

In 1963, Pauling was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, making him the only person to have won two undivided Nobel Prizes. (Photo: © The Nobel Foundation)

1958 -- Integrated circuit invented.

1958 -- George Wells Beadle awarded Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

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

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.

1969 -- Max Delbrück awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine.

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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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)

1975 -- David Baltimore, Renato Dulbecco, and Howard Martin Temin awarded the 1975 Nobel Prize in Medicine.

Caltech President David Baltimore, former Caltech faculty member and Salk Institute researcher Renato Delbucco, and Caltech alumnus Howard Temin (Ph.D. 1960) were awarded the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries concerning the interaction between tumour viruses and the genetic material of the cell. (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.

1976 -- La Jolla Cancer Research Foundation (Burnham Institute) founded.

The Burnham Institute was founded in 1976 by William (Bill) H. Fishman, M.D., Ph.D., and his wife Lillian Fishman, M.Ed. as the La Jolla Cancer Research Foundation (LJCRS) located in San Diego. The Institute was originally focused on oncodevelopment -- the study of developmental biology in conjunction with oncology, as a means to better understand the elusive and deadly nature of cancer.

In 1979, the Institute received a two-year planning grant from the National Cancer that helped the Institute relocate on five acres donated by the Whittaker Corporation in Torrey Pines in close proximity to the University of Southern California at San Diego and the Salk Institute. In 1981, the Institute was designated as a Cancer Center for Basic Research by the National Cancer Institute.

In 1996, The Burnham Institute was named to honor the generosity of Roberta and Malin Burnham and their family, and to reflect its broadening scientific foundation. In 1999, The Del E. Webb Center for Neuroscience and Aging, which focuses on diseases such as stroke, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, was established, solidifying the expansion of research. Today, The Burnham Institute continues to evolve as a premier basic science institute, embodying the vision of its co-founders and contributing to the health and well being of the world.

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)

1978 -- Hybritech founded.

In 1978, Hybritech was founded by Ivor Royston and Howard Birndorf becoming San Diego's first biotechnology company. Hybritech issued its Initial Public Offering in 1981 and raised $12 million, and $33 million in a secondary offering in 1982. The company was acquired by Eli Lilly in 1986.

Importantly, Hybritech's recruitment of experienced management and scientific talent became the foundation of numerous other San Diego biotechnology companies, including Gen-Probe, Genoptix, Gensia, IDEC Pharmaceuticals (Biogen Idec), Immune Response, Ligand, Nanogen, Neurocrine Biosciences, Viagene (Chiron), and more.

1980 -- U.S. Supreme Court ruled man-made organism patentable.

1980 -- Bayh-Dole Act provides for university technology transfer.

1980 -- AMGen (Applied Molecular Genetics) founded.

Founded in 1980 with George B. Rathmann as its CEO, Amgen (Applied Molecular Genetics) pioneered the development of novel and innovative products based on advances in recombinant DNA and molecular biology. In 1983, Amgen issued its Initial Public Offering (IPO) of 2,350,000 shares at $18 per share and raised $40 million leading the way for other biotech IPO's. More than a decade ago, Amgen introduced two of the first biologically derived human therapeutics EPOGEN® (Epoetin alfa) and NEUPOGEN® (Filgrastim), which became the biotechnology industry's first blockbusters.

Today, Amgen is a Fortune 500 company whose business has expanded to serve patients around the world in supportive cancer care and the treatment of anemia, rheumatoid arthritis, and other auto-immune diseases such as psoriatic arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis.

1981 -- Roger W. Sperry awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine.

1984 -- Robert Bruce Merrifield awarded Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

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.

1990 -- BayBio founded.

BayBio, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization headquartered in San Francisco, was founded by a consortium of universities, public officials, educators, and bioscience executives to foster a regional climate supporting the bioscience industry in Northern California.

1992 -- Rudolph A. Marcus awarded Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

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.

1995 -- Edward B. Lewis awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine.

1995 -- Southern California Biomedical Council founded.

Southern California Biomedical Council (SCBC), was founded with support from Rebuild LA (RLA) under its second president, Linda Griego, and incorporated in 1995 as a non-profit (c) 6, membership-based, California trade association. SCBC promotes and supports biomedical and biotechnology research, development, and anufacturing in the Greater Los Angeles region for economic development and job creation.

1997 -- Paul D. Boyer awarded Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

1998 -- Louis J. Ignarro awarded Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

1998 -- Walter Kohn awarded Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

2001 -- Human Genome Project draft sequence published.

2001 -- K. Barry Sharpless awarded Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

2005 -- The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine established.

In 2005, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine ("The Institute" or "CIRM") was established with the passage of Proposition 71, the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative. The statewide ballot measure, which provided $3 billion in funding for stem cell research at California universities and research institutions, was approved by California voters on November 2, 2004, and called for the establishment of a new state agency to make grants and provide loans for stem cell research, research facilities and other vital research opportunities.

2005 -- Robert H. Grubbs awarded Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

2006 -- Andrew Fire awarded Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

2007 -- BP Energy Biosciences Institute founded.

BP Energy Biosciences Institute established with $500 million ten year grant to a consortium including researchers at the QB3 facility at the University of California, Berkeley, the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley Lab in Berkeley, the Joint Genome Institute in Walnut Creek, and the University of Illinois which will provide agricultural support.

The institute will focus on three key areas of energy bioscience: 1) Developing new biofuel components and improving the efficiency and flexibility of those currently blended with transport fuels; 2) Devising new technologies to enhance and accelerate the conversion of organic matter to biofuel molecules, with the aim of increasing the proportion of a crop which can be used to produce feedstock; and 3) Using modern plant science to develop species that produce a higher yield of energy molecules and can be grown on land not suitable for food production.

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Tell us about California'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