Perspectives: biotechnology in Czech Republic, the past and the future.

ogist Jan Evangelista Purkyně in 1837. Not all new biological discoveries were derived within the bounds of universities at that time. In the Augustinian monastery in Brno, Johan Gregor Mendel discovered the existence of paired elementary units of heredity (now called genes) and established the statistical laws governing them. The Mendel’s studies in plant hybridization and the basic laws of heredity published in 1866 laid basis for the development of modern genetics, molecular biology and molecular biotechnology disciplines, and this not only in Czech Republic. Czech biotechnology after World War II recorded the development in mainly pharmaceutical production of antibiotics and biologically active substances, production of metabolites (e.g. alcohols, alkaloids, organic acids, amino acids) and microbial modification of various chemical compounds. This expansion of industrial biotechnology evoked the formation of the Research Institute of Antibiotics and Biotransformations in 1966. The 1960s and 1970s are remembered as an era of widespread interest in enzyme application for washing powders, diagnostic preparation and starch syrup production. From the beginning of the 1980’s, Czech biotechnology became a miscellaneous sector with activities in the preparation of monoclonal antibodies for human, animal and plant diagnostics, tissue culture programs, applications of genetic engineering and others.