The beginnings of the Institute of Molecular and Industrial Biotechnology (formerly: the Institute of Technical Biochemistry) of the Lodz University of Technology date back to 1963, when a biochemistry laboratory was established at the then Faculty of Food Chemistry, and then in 1966, by the decision of the Ministry of National Education, an independent Department of Technical Biochemistry was established. The created Department was the first unit of this type in the country established at technical universities. Its founder and first head was dr hab. Eng. Edward Galas. Research conducted in the Department in the field of biochemistry and enzymes gave rise to the practical use of microorganisms and enzymes in industry, agriculture or medicine, which initiated the development of biotechnology in Poland.
In 1970, as part of the change in the organizational structure of the Faculty, four institutes were selected, among them the Institute of Technical Biochemistry, which was established as a result of the merger of two departments: technical biochemistry and technology of nutrients and concentrates. The first director of the Institute, in the years 1970-1998, was prof. dr hab. Eng. Edward Galas, and since 1998 the director is prof. dr hab. Eng. Stanislaw Bielecki.
The years 1970-1980 were a period of intensive development of the Institute, made possible by many initiatives of its management and employees, such as: IBT joining the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), thanks to which the purchase of modern biotechnological equipment was financed (1974); establishing a fruit and vegetable products technology team (1978), headed in 1978-2001 by prof. dr hab. Eng. Jadwiga Wilska-Jeszka, the implementation of the first in Poland technology for the industrial production of a bacterial alpha-amylase preparation (1980), as well as the organization of the first Biotechnology Symposium in the country (1978) and the participation of prof. Galas in the creation of the European Federation of Biotechnology (1978).
In the 1980s and 1990s, the scope of research carried out at the Institute of Technical Biochemistry gradually expanded, which was accompanied by the organization of new laboratories and laboratories: X-ray Structural Analysis (1989), Molecular Biotechnology (2002) and Cell Cultures (2005). The technological hall was also modernized (2006). The modernization of the Institute carried out in 2012-2014 contributed to a fuller use of the equipment facilities and enables high-level research in the field of industrial biotechnology, molecular biotechnology, biomaterials engineering (mainly bionanocellulose), proteomics/structural biology, food biochemistry and nutrigenomics.
Taking into account the profile of current and future scientific research carried out at the Institute, on October 1, 2019, it changed its name to the Institute of Molecular and Industrial Biotechnology.