Oil-degrading engineered bacterium and the patenting of living organisms (Chakrabarty)
Bacteria modificada degradadora de petróleo y patente de seres vivos (Chakrabarty)
- Date
- 1971-1980 · confidence high
- Place
- General Electric, Schenectady, New York, United States
- Credited to
- Ananda Mohan Chakrabarty
- Field
- Life & health
What it is
The Indian-American microbiologist Chakrabarty combined Pseudomonas plasmids to obtain a bacterium able to degrade several components of crude oil. The US Supreme Court (Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 1980) allowed a modified living organism to be patented, the legal pillar of the biotechnology industry.
The bacterium was not modified by recombinant DNA but by plasmid conjugation; the patent was filed in 1971 and granted in 1981 after the June 1980 ruling. The bacterium was never used at scale on real spills.
What it led to
- patentability of modified microorganisms, plants and animals
- bioremediation of oil spills with bacterial consortia
- intellectual-property model of biotechnology (Oncomouse, transgenic crops)