Producing HGH in the lab would prove to be a daunting task. Hormones are made up of proteins; proteins, in turn, are made up of amino acids. In the case of HGH, the chain that makes up its protein consists of 191 amino acids strung together. Imagine having to string 191 various kinds of beads together in a row, getting them on the string in a specific order, without making a single mistake. Then try and imagine doing this at the molecular level and you get something of the idea of the difficulties involved.

It was a challenge well suited to a company called Genentech, co-founded by Nobel prize winner, Herbert Boyer, who also played a major role in the development of genetic engineering. The task was assigned to David Goeddel, one of Genentech's leading scientists. Employing the techniques of gene splicing, Goeddel's team was able, after a year of intense work, to clone the HGH molecule - almost. What they ended up with was a molecule that did everything that HGH did, but was short by one amino acid.

During this same period drug manufacturer Eli Lily had been working on the problem of replicating HGH as well. Within a year of Goeddel's success, a team at Eli Lily were able to complete the task down to the final amino acid, producing the entire HGH molecule with all 191 amino acids.
Ultimately, both companies were awarded the right to produce and distribute HGH. One company could make HGH with the help of E. Coli bacteria. The other company could make HGH from mammalian cells with the use of recombinant DNA technology.

The most important point, however, was that scientists, and the medical community, now had a totally pure source of HGH, a source which provided HGH that was in every way like the HGH produced in the human body - right down to the final atom. Just as a molecule of salt you might make in a high school lab by combining sodium and chlorine would be identical to a molecule of salt produced by the body in perspiration, so too a molecule of HGH that could now be produced in the lab was identical to a molecule of HGH produced by the body. The procedure might be infinitely more complex, but now at least it was possible.

The upshot was that finally a new, safe, supply of HGH would be forthcoming, that treatments for children with growth defects could be resumed. Important as that was, yet a more widespread and far-reaching application for HGH was about to unfold. A second breakthrough, this time in the war on aging, was at hand. This breakthrough would be brought forth by an endocrinologist working in Madison, Wisconsin, Dr. Daniel Rudman.