The birth of genetic engineering and recombinant DNA began at Stanford University, in the year 1970 (Hein). Researchers in biochemistry and medicine pursued separate research paths, but these paths converged to form what is now known as biotechnology (Hein). At the time the biochemistry department was focusing on an animal virus and found a method to cut DNA so sharply that it reformed and infected other cells. (Hein) The medical department focused on bacteria and developed a microscopic molecular messenger, which not only could carry a foreign “blueprint” or message, but could also cause the bacteria to read and copy the information. (Hein) To understand what happened at Stanford you need a concept: how to "turn on" or "turn off" a bacterial "factory". (Hein) When a cell divides or makes a protein, it uses promoters (“on switches”) to start the process and terminators (“off switches”) to stop the process. (Hein) To form proteins, promoters and terminators are used to indicate where the protein begins and ends. (Hein) In 1972 Herbert Boyer, a biochemist, provided Stanford with a bacterial enzyme called Eco R1. (Hein) This enzyme is used by bacteria to defend themselves from bacteriophages, or bacterial viruses. (Hein) The biochemistry department used this enzyme as a “molecular scalpel,” to cut a simian virus called SV40. (Hein) What the Stanford researchers observed was that when they did this, the virus reformed at the cut site in a circular fashion. It subsequently infected other cells as if nothing had happened. (Hein) This demonstrated that EcoR1 could cut binding sites on two different DNA strands, which could be combined using “sticky ends” at the sites. (Hein). The biochemistry department's contribution to genetic engineering was the observation of EcoR cleavage1