Overview of Medical Biotechnology

Overview of Medical Biotechnology

• Medical biotechnology is the application of biotechnology tools for producing medical products like cancer therapeutics and vaccines.
• These products are used for the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of diseases.

History and Innovation

• The term 'Biotechnology' was coined in 1919 by Karl Ereky, a Hungarian agricultural engineer.
• Ereky investigated how living cells and cell materials could be used to produce useful products.
• Innovations are driven by the need for improved medical diagnosis and therapy for diseases, including autoimmune, inflammatory, cancer, and infectious diseases.
• Significant innovations include biomolecular therapies like recombinant proteins, monoclonal antibodies, stem cells, and bioinspired materials.
• Medical biotechnology innovations will keep enhancing available medical treatments for many conditions

Top 10 Biotech Trends & Innovations in 2025

• AI allows biotechnology startups to automate processes for scalability.
• AI speeds up drug discovery, screens biomarkers, and finds novel products from scientific literature.
• Image classification algorithms detect traits like cancer cells or crop disease symptoms.
• Deep learning analyzes microbiomes, screens phenotypes, and develops rapid diagnostics.

Arpeggio Bio

• This startup uses an RNA platform to help guide therapeutic development
• Arpeggio Bio uses AI to interpret RNA time series data for signaling pathway reconstruction.
• RNA analysis data is converted into visualizations to show how drugs affect RNA levels based on dose, time, and tissue.

DeepTrait

• Identifies genetic markers for plant and livestock breeding, novel drug design, and diagnostics.
• DeepTrait's neural networks analyze genomic data to understand the genetic mechanisms of a trait.

Big Data in Biotech

• Omics technologies, sensors, & IoT devices provide big data for biotech innovation
• Big data facilitates biopharma companies to recruit patients for clinical trials more effectively.
• Companies use bioinformatics to develop better feed, improve crop and livestock varieties, and explore undiscovered microbes.

BioXplor

• Discovers safe treatment regimens using big data

• This German startup performs network pharmacology analysis to develop treatments with unstructured data.

• Determines synergistic or antagonistic effects of drug combinations and analyzes patient data, improving outcomes.

BioBox Analytics

• BioBox Analytics develops a genomic data analytics platform.
• This genomic data analytics platform manages models, samples, and data, identifies gene enrichment and visualizes insights

Gene Editing

• Increased efficiency is due to engineered nucleases, including CRISPR.
• Applications include gene therapy for genetic disorders and other conditions.
• Gene editing can add, replace, or silence genes, enabling the development of transgenic plants and animals

Precision Medicine

• Lower gene editing and sequencing costs have made this more routine in clinical practice
• Precision medicine enables personalized treatment for diseases like cancer.
• Focus is directed toward identifying new drugs, discovering novel drug targets, and improving drug delivery.

iLoF

• Offers a blood-based screening tests that classifies patients for clinical trials.
• Developing precise personalized drug therapies with a patient-centric approach

Dyno Therapeutics

• Developing Al-powered gene therapies through its CapsidMap platform.
• This startup optimizes adeno-associated viral (AAV) vectors for improved targeting and creates better gene therapy vectors

Gene Sequencing

• Dramatically reduced DNA sequencing costs have opened many new applications.
• This enables identification of pediatric disorders, personalized treatments, and phenotyping.
• Sequencing rapidly detects microbes in clinical, dairy, and soil samples.

BioClavis

• Offers personalized diagnostics via its TempO-Seq platform.
• By using defined input sequences, the solution increases the efficiency and needs only 10 % sequencing reads as compared to RNA-Seq.

Bioskryb

• Provides whole genome sequencing workflow via its Resolve DNA
• The startup's workflow is compatible with single cells, multiple cells, and low-input DNA samples.

Biomanufacturing

• Utilizes biological systems to produce medical products/therapies, biomaterials, food/beverages, and chemicals.
• Cell culture, fermentation, and recombinant production technologies are advanced to make biomanufacturing scalable.

Proteinea

• Develops an insect-based production platform for next-gen biomanufacturing.
• Its InsectaPro technology uses insect larvae as mini-bioreactors in data-driven vertical farms for sustainable recombinant production.

Synthetic Biology

• Biotechnology startups develop products faster with new abilities to read and write genomes
• Synthetic biology startups address drug design, agriculture, and microbiome applications
• Bacterial cell factories are used for high yields of pharmaceutical, material, and food biochemicals

Ribbon Biolabs

• Ribbon Biolabs is an Austrian startup developing new methods for DNA synthesis.

Bioprinting

• Brazilian startup 3D Biotechnology Solutions develops bioprinting solutions.
• The company’s bioprinters serve researchers working on tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.

Prometheus

• Offers 3D bioprinting of human tissues with high cell viability.
• Cells are combined with biomaterials to create bio-ink printed layer by layer.

Microfluidics

• The need for lab-on-a-chip (LOC) devices drive the interest in microfluidics in the BioTech industry.
• Startups are developing paper-based microfluidics for diagnostics and environmental monitoring.
• Organ-on-a-chip (OOC) devices finds more applications in drug screening and disease modeling

Droplite

• A Spanish startup, develops a device thatcombines microfluidics, nanotechnology, surface chemistry, and photonics.
• The device Under development to analyze immunoassay test cartridges within minutes for diagnostic tests.

Tissue Engineering

• Tissue engineering startups have been growing thanks developments in bioprinting and microfluidics This field enables the creation of autologous tissue grafts to treat burns or for organ transplantation, as well as regenerative medicine.

Aleph Farms

• This Isralei startup produces cultured meat, isolating cells from healthy cows and growing them into an ethical sustainable meat alternative.

LyGenesis

• This startup transplants its cell therapy using outpatient endoscopic ultrasound, eliminating the need for surgery.
• This technology develops an organ regeneration technology platform, which transforms lymph nodes into functioning ectopic organs.

Innovations in Healthcare

• Revolutionary changes include life expectancy increased by 25 years between 1914-2014.
• This due to discoveries like penicillin (1922), pacemakers (1952), and smallpox eradication (1980).
• Achievements include heart repair, DNA mapping, and partial brain transplants.

Omics Technologies Overview

• Omics technologies use large biological datasets to generate, process, and analyze molecules in cells, tissues, or organisms.
• A complex system can be understood more thoroughly if it is considered as "a whole”.

Key Omics Branches

• Genomics studies organisms' whole genomes (WGS).
• Transcriptomics studies total ribonucleic acid (RNA) transcripts in a cell.
• Proteomics studies the entire set of proteins in a cell, tissue, or biological sample.
• Metabolomics studies global metabolite profiles in a system.

Genomic Analysis

• A genome contains an organism's complete set of DNA with ~30,000-40,000 protein-coding genes in humans.
• Genomics studies the genetic makeup of organisms, giving insights into biological diversity, origins of traits, development and susceptibility to diseases.
• Genomic sequence analysis allows studying gene functions (functional genomics), comparing genes across organisms (comparative genomics), and generating protein structures (structural genomics).

Technologies Used

• One- and two-dimensional gel electrophoresis are used to identify the relative mass of a protein and its isoelectric point.
• X-ray crystallography and nuclear magnetic resonance are used to characterize the three-dimensional structure of peptides and proteins.

Advanced Proteomics Techniques

• Tandem mass spectrometry is combined with chromatography or electrophoresis to quantify proteins.
• Mass spectrometry (no-tandem) is used for protein identification, often with chromatography.
• Mass spectroscopy can produce full protein sequences, allowing cross-species comparisons.

Phylogenetic Comparison

• Protein sequence analysis allows phylogenetic comparison and determination of species divergence.
• Protein sequence data helps develop computer-generated protein backbones for identifying conformational similarities or protein/protein interactions.

Additional Protein Analysis Techniques

• Structural overlays compare surface topography and active site differences across species/conditions.
• Affinity chromatography is used to identify protein-protein and protein-DNA binding reactions.
• X-ray Tomography can determines the location of labelled proteins / protein complexes,

Innovations in Proteomics

• Cell isolation in research involved porcine aortic valve and endocardium.
• The methodLabel free-utitlized involves liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS)
• The data analysis involvesDifferential protein expression analysis and pathway enrichment

History of Sequencing

• DNA sequencing analyzes nucleotides in DNA/RNA molecules to determine their order.
• The first nucleotide sequence was reported by Walter Gilbert and Allan Maxam in 1973.
• Sanger sequencing, developed by Fredric Sanger et al. in 1975, is easier and safer.
• Both Gilbert and Sanger were awarded the 1980 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Sequencing Methods

• Maxam-Gilbert sequencing utilized specific chemical modification and DNA cleavage.
• Sanger sequencing uses selective incorporation of chain-terminating dideoxynucleotides.
• Modern NGS techniques require many samples and higher throughput compared to Sanger.

Second Generation Sequencing

• New DNA sequencing methods emerged in the mid to late 1990s which used advancements from sanger techniques
• NGS can sequence large amounts of DNA from multiple samples at a high-throughput speed.
• The price decreased from 100 million dollars to less than 10,000 dollars

Key differences in the NGS procedure

• It is not require cloning of DNA fragments using foreign cloning vectors.
• Only starting DNA is started in small amounts with template libraries for DNA amplification
• The nucleotide incorporation is monitored directly by fluorescence detection/ changes in electrical charge

Transcriptomics

• It studies the complete set of forms and their the number in RNA, mRNA, rRNA, tRNA
• It examines the expression level of mRNAs using high-throughput techniques such as micro array technology and next-generation

Medical Imaging and Diagnostics

• Medical imaging creates visual representations of the body’s interior for clinical analysis, medical intervention and physiology.
• Medical diagnoses is the identification of which diseases/ conditions explain a persons symptoms and signs

Projection Radiology

• X-rays, can be used to determine the type and extent of a fracture and detect lung changes.
• Radio-opaque contrast media can be used to visualize organ structures.

Fluroscopy

• This technique uses xrays to obatain real-time moving images of internal structures of the body

Computed Tomography (CT)

• Scans make detailed 2D/3D images from every type of body structure.
• Ct uses a large gantry that carries the x-ray source and electronic x-ray detectors

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI):

• MRI uses magnets to interacts with water molucles in human tissues to produce an image, producing a detectable signal.
• Process emits a radio frequency 3 main fields include Primary gradient, Gradient, and Spatially

Ultrasound

• Medical ultrasonography uses high frequency broadband sound waves that are reflected by tissue to varying degrees to produce images

Innovation in Medical Imaging

• By Using graphical processing units which create computer functions and algorithms, is uses the function of speed for high-quality
• Enlarging of parameters of 3D and 4D which can create increased contrast with soft tissues, reduced visibility of metal artifact, etc

Class 7: Antimicrobials and Vaccines

• Antimicrobials are substances used in hospitals, homes, schools to prevent the growth of microbes (viruses, fungi)
• An antimicrobial agent is a substance used that kills microorganisms or stops them from growing

Avertimicrobial grouping and classification

Antibiotics - bacteria Antifungals - fungi Microbicidal - kill microbes Biostatic - inhibit microbe growth

Vaccines and Immunity

• Vaccines contain an agent that resembles a disease causing microorganism to threat and destroy it.
• These agents recognize and destroy microorganisms associated with the illness

Methods of Testing New Meds

Cell isolation involved porcine aortic valve or endocardium. The method Label free-utitlized involves liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. The data analysis involvesDifferential protein expression analysis

Live attenuated vaccines versus Live attenuated vaccines

These can be used to prevent illnesses such Haemophilus influenzae type B or Hepatitis B Live attenuated vaccines versus Live attenuated vaccines These are the most common type of illness, which includes mumps, rubella, varicella

Methods of Inoculation

M Rna creates spike M Rna creates the function by B cells, this stimulates humoral immune response