Some of the contributions have been

mentioned below.
1902- First attempt of plant tissue culture
(Haberlandt).
1904- Embryo culture of selected crucifers
attempted (Hannig).
1922- Asymbiotic germination of orchid seeds in
vitro (Knudson).
1922- In vitro culture of root tips (Robbins).
1925- Use of embryo culture technique in
interspecific crosses of Linum (Laibach).
1934- Successful culture of tomato roots (White).
1939- Successful establishment of continuously
growing callus cultures (Gautheret,
Nobecourt and White).
1941- Use of coconut milk containing a cell
division factor for the first time in Datura
(van Overbeek).
1944- In vitro adventitious shoot formation in
tobacco (Skoog).
1946- Raising of whole plants of Lupinus
and Tropaeolum by shoot tip culture (Ball).
1952- Use of meristem culture to obtain virus free
dahlias (Morel and Martin).
1952- First application of micrografting (Morel
and Martin).
1952- Got the U S Patent on their claim that plant
cells could be grown in liquid nutrient
medium and had the potential to produce
useful compounds (Routien and Nickel of
Pfizer & Co. Inc., New York).
1953- Production of haploid callus of the
gymnosperm Ginkgo biloba from pollen
(Tulecke).
1954- First plant from a single cell (Muir et al.).
1955- Discovery of kinetin a cell division
hormone (Miller et al.).
1957- Discovery of the regulation of organ
formation by changing the ratio of auxin:
cytokinin (Skoog and Miller).
1958- Regeneration of somatic embryos in vitro
from the nucellus of Citrus ovules
(Maheshwari and Rangaswamy).
1959- Regeneration of embryos from callus
clumps and cell suspensions of Daucus
carota (Reinert, Steward).
1959- Publication of first handbook on plant
tissue culture (Gautheret).
1960- First successful test tube fertilization in
Papaver rhoeas (Kanta).
1960- Use of the microculture method for growing
single cells in hanging drops in a
conditioned medium (Jones et al.).
1960- Enzymatic degradation of cell walls to
obtain large number of protoplasts
(Cocking).
1960- Filtration of cell suspensions and isolation
of single cells by plating (Bergmann).
1962- Development of Murashige and Skoog
nutrition medium (Murashige and Skoog).
1964- Production of first haploid embryos from
pollen grains of Datura innoxia (Guha and
Maheshwari).
1967- Androgenic haploid plants of Nicotiana
were produced (Bourgin and Nitsch).
1968- Restriction endonuclease term coined to
a class of enzymes involved in cleaving
DNA (Meselson and Yuan).
1970- Selection of biochemical mutants in vitro
by the use of tissue culture derived
variation (Carlson).
1970- First achievement of protoplast fusion
(Power et al.).
1970- Discovery of first restriction endonuclease
from Haemophillus influenzae Rd. It was
later purified and named HindII (Kelly and
Smith).
1970- In certain cancer causing animal virus
genetic information flow in reverse form.
Discovery of reverse transcriptase (Temin)
1971- First restriction map using HindII enzyme
to cut circular DNA of SV 40- into 11-
specific fragments was prepared
(Nathans).
1971- Regeneration of first plants from
protoplasts (Takebe et al.).
1972- First report of interspecific hybridization
through protoplast fusion in two species
of Nicotiana (Carlson et al.).
1972- First recombinant DNA molecule produced
using restriction enzymes (Jackson et al.).
1972- Joining of two restriction fragments
regardless of their origin produced by
the same restriction enzyme by the
action of DNA ligase (Mertz and
Davis).
1973- Use of Lobban and Kaiser technique to
develop hybrid plasmid—insertion of
EcoRI fragment of DNA molecule into
circular plasmid DNA of bacteria using
DNA ligase. Gene from African clawed
toad inserted into plasmid DNA of bacteria
(Cohen et al.).
1974- Discovery that the Ti plasmid is the tumor
inducing principle of Agrobacterium
(Zaenen et al., Larebeke et al.).
1975- Positive in vitro selection of maize callus
cultures resistant to T toxin of
Helminthosporium maydis (Gengenbach
and Green).
1975- High resolution 2- Dimensional gel
electrophoresis procedure developed that
led to the development of proteomics
(O‘Farrel).
1976- Shoot initiation from cryopreserved shoot
apices of carnation (Seibert).
Introduction 9-
10- Introduction to Plant Biotechnology
1977- Successful integration of the Ti plasmid
DNA from A. tumefaciens in plants (Chilton
et al.).
1977- A method of gene sequencing based on
degradation of DNA chain (Maxam and
Gilbert).
1977- Discovery of split genes (Sharp and
Roberts).
1978- Somatic hybridization of tomato and potato
resulting in pomato (Melchers et al.).
1979- Co-cultivation procedure developed for
transformation of plant protoplasts with
Agrobacterium (Marton et al.).
1980- Commercial production of human insulin
through genetic engineering in bacterial
cells (Eli Lilly and Co.).
1980- Restriction fragment length polymorphism
(RFLP) technique developed.
1980- Studies on the structure of T-DNA by
cloning the complete EcoRI digest of T37-
tobacco crown gall DNA into a phage
vector, thus allowing the isolation and
detailed study of T-DNA border sequences
(Zambryski et al.).
1981- Introduction of the term somaclonal
variation (Larkin and Scowcroft).
1982- Incorporation of naked DNA by protoplasts
resulting in the transformation with isolated
DNA (Krens et al.).
1984- Transformation of tobacco with
Agrobacterium; transgenic plants
developed ( De Block et al., Horsch et al.).
1986- Genetic fingerprinting technique
developed for identifying individuals by
analyzing polymorphism at DNA sequence
level (Jeffreys).
1986- TMV virus-resistant tobacco and tomato
transgenic plants developed using cDNA
of coat protein gene of TMV (Powell-Abel
et al.).
1986- Nucleotide sequencing of tobacco
chloroplast genome (Shinozaki et al.).
1986- The discovery of polymerase chain reaction
(Mullis et al.).
1987- Development of biolistic gene transfer
method for plant transformation (Sanford
et al., Klein et al.).
1987- Bt gene from bacterium (Bacillus
thuringiensis) isolated (Barton et al.).
1990- The Human Genome Project is formally
launched.
1990- Random amplified polymorphic DNA
(RAPD) technique developed (Williams et
al., Welsh and McClelland).
1991- DNA microarray system using light
directed chemical synthesis system
developed (Fodor).
1995- The Institute for genomic research
reported the complete DNA sequence of
Haemophilus influenzae (Fleischmann
et al.).
1995- DNA finger printing by amplified fragment
length polymorphism (AFLP) technique
developed (Vos et al.).
1997- Sequencing of E. coli genome (Blattner
et al.).
1997- The genome of yeast (16- Mb) was
sequenced by a public international
consortium (Goffeau).
1998- The genome of a multicellular organism
(Caenorhabditis elegans) sequenced (C.
elegans sequencing consortium).
2001- Sequencing of human genome
successfully completed (Human Genome
project Consortium and Venter et al.).
2002- Draft sequence of rice genome (Oryza
sativa L. ssp. japonica) (Goff et al., 2002-).
2003- Draft sequence of rice genome (Oryza
sativa L. ssp. indica) (Yu et al., 2002-).
2005- Map based sequence of the rice genome
(International Rice Genome Sequencing
Project).