In the fall of 1972, there was no such thing as genetic engineering. A late-night snack and a newspaper clipping changed all that-and spawned a new industry.

In the early 1970s, Herbert Boyer's lab at the University of California, San Francisco, isolated an enzyme that cut DNA at specific locations. At the same time, Stanley Cohen's Stanford lab was working out methods for introducing small circular pieces of DNA called "plasmids" into bacteria, which act as living Xerox machines, copying genes each time the microbes divide. At a November 1972 conference in Hawaii, both researchers presented their work-and realized that if they combined their techniques they would have a remarkable tool. The pair sealed the deal at a local deli and within months their labs had jointly proved the possibility of gene "cloning": splicing a gene of interest-say, one that encodes a human hormone-into a microorganism or other cell. The technique is at the heart of DNA sequencing, genetic engineering and, indeed, biotechnology.