Insulin and history of science: The birth of transgenesis. On May 1976 several molecular biologists were asked by the company Eli Lilly to prepare human insulin by recombinant DNA technique. The Harvard team headed by Walter Gilbert followed the classical route by copying particular human gene. The US law pushed them to UK but the experiment failed. The California group used the gene prepared by chemical synthesis thus avoiding legal troubles. The new company Genentech established by Herbert Boyer and venture capitalist Robert Swanson was successful in preparing 20 ng of human insulin from bacteria on August 1978. In 1980 both founders owned shares of Genentech worth of 66 millions USD. The boom of biotech companies started.