Biotechnology and its Applications

Biotechnology and its Applications

• Biotechnology is the industrial scale production of biopharmaceuticals and biologicals using genetically modified microbes, fungi, plants, and animals.
• Applications include therapeutics, diagnostics, genetically modified crops, processed foods, bioremediation, waste treatment, and energy production.
• Three critical areas in biotechnology are: providing an improved catalyst (microbe or enzyme), creating optimal conditions for the catalyst, and downstream processing for purification.
• Biotechnology is used to improve human life, especially in food production and health.

Biotechnological Applications in Agriculture

• Three options for increasing food production are:
  • Agro-chemical based agriculture
  • Organic agriculture
  • Genetically engineered crop-based agriculture.
• The Green Revolution tripled food supply but wasn't enough.
• Agrochemicals (fertilizers and pesticides) have been used for increased yields, but are expensive and don't always increase yields further in developing countries.
• Traditional breeding techniques are slow and further yield increases are not possible.
• Tissue culture (totipotency) is a technology used to produce whole plants from any plant part (explants) in a lab setting under sterile conditions.
• This method can be used to quickly produce many genetically identical plants (somatic clones), e.g., tomato, banana, apple.
• Tissue culture can also be used to recover healthy plants from diseased ones, by removing the virus-free meristem.
• Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) involve altering plant genes for various purposes.
• Benefits include increased tolerance to stresses (cold, drought, salt, heat), reduced pesticide use, and improved nutritional value (e.g., Golden Rice).

Biotechnological Applications in Medicine

• Recombinant DNA technology has significantly impacted healthcare by enabling the mass production of safe and effective therapeutic drugs.
• These drugs are often identical to human proteins and don't cause harmful immune responses.
• Insulin is a crucial treatment for diabetes.
• In the past, insulin was extracted from animals (cattle/pigs) but now is produced using bacteria, resulting in a faster, more efficient, and less expensive process.

Transgenic Animals

• Transgenic animals have DNA altered to express an extra (foreign) gene, enabling the study of gene regulation, disease models, and the production of pharmaceuticals.
• They are crucial models for studying human diseases (e.g., cancer, cystic fibrosis, rheumatoid arthritis, Alzheimer's).
• This technology is used in creating efficient and safe vaccines for humans (e.g., polio).

Ethical Issues

• Ethical standards and biological significance are crucial in manipulating living organisms for public service (e.g. food and medicine sources), as these manipulations can have unpredictable impacts on ecosystems.
• Regulations and approval committees are needed for safety and responsible use of genetically modified organisms.
• Companies patenting products using genetic materials from certain regions is a subject of ethical and social debate. Farmers and indigenous peoples' traditional knowledge rights are important considerations.