Watson and Crick’s discovery of the structure of the DNA molecule in 1953 could be considered the starting point of genetics but the first GMO was made in the 70's in California, by Americans scientists.

In the late nineteenth century, a German biochemist found the nucleic acids, long-chain polymers of nucleotides, were made up of sugar, phosphoric acid, and several nitrogen-containing bases.

In 1943, American Oswald Avery proved that DNA carries genetic information. He even suggested DNA might actually be the gene.

By the late 1940s, DNA was largely accepted as the genetic molecule.

In 1948, Linus Pauling discovered that many proteins take the shape of an alpha helix, spiraled like a spring coil.

In 1950, biochemist Erwin Chargaff found that the arrangement of nitrogen bases in DNA varied widely, but the amount of certain bases always occurred in a one-to-one ratio.

In 1978, in the laboratory of Herbert Boyer at the University of California at San Francisco, a synthetic version of the human insulin gene was made and inserted into the bacterium Escheria coli.

Genentech Inc. reports the production of the first human protein manufactured in a bacteria. This was the first time a synthetic, recombinant gene was used to clone a protein.