Biotechnology is the use of living systems and organisms to develop or
make useful products, or "any technological application that uses
biological systems, living organisms or derivatives thereof, to make or modify
products or processes for specific use" (UN Convention on Biological
Diversity, Art. 2).
Depending on the tools and applications, it often overlaps with the (related)
fields of bioengineering and biomedical engineering.
For thousands of years, humankind
has used biotechnology in agriculture, food production, and medicine.
The term itself is largely believed to have been coined in 1919 by Hungarian
engineer Károly Ereky. In the late 20th and early 21st century, biotechnology has
expanded to include new and diverse sciences such as genomics, recombinant gene
technologies, applied immunology, and development of pharmaceutical therapies and diagnostic
tests.
Definitions
The
wide concept of "biotech" or "biotechnology" encompasses a
wide range of procedures (and history) for modifying living organisms according
to human purposes, going back to domestication of animals, cultivation of
plants, and "improvements" to these through breeding programs that
employ artificial
selection
and hybridization. Modern usage also
includes genetic
engineering
as well as cell and tissue culture technologies.
Biotechnology can therefore be defined as the application of biological
organisms, systems, or processes by various industries to learning about the
science of life and the improvement of the value of materials and organisms
such as pharmaceuticals, crops, and livestock. In other words,
biotechnology can be defined as the mere application of technical advances in
life science to develop commercial products. Biotechnology also writes on the
pure biological sciences (animal
cell culture,
biochemistry, cell biology, embryology, genetics, microbiology, and molecular biology). In many instances,
it is also dependent on knowledge and methods from outside the sphere of
biology including:
- bioinformatics, a new brand of computer science
- bioprocess engineering
- biorobotics
- chemical engineering
Conversely,
modern biological sciences (including even concepts such as molecular ecology) are intimately
entwined and heavily dependent on the methods developed through biotechnology
and what is commonly thought of as the life sciences industry.
Biotechnology is the research and development in the laboratory using bioinformatics for exploration,
extraction, exploitation and production from any living organisms and any source of biomass by means of biochemical
engineering
where high value-added products could be planned (reproduced by biosynthesis, for example),
forecasted, formulated, developed, manufactured and marketed for the purpose of
sustainable operations (for the return from bottomless initial investment on R
& D) and gaining durable patents rights (for exclusives rights for sales,
and prior to this to receive national and international approval from the
results on animal experiment and human experiment, especially on the pharmaceutical branch of
biotechnology to prevent any undetected side-effects or safety concerns by
using the products).
By
contrast, bioengineering is generally thought
of as a related field that more heavily emphasizes higher systems approaches
(not necessarily the altering or using of biological materials directly)
for interfacing with and utilizing living things. Bioengineering is the
application of the principles of engineering and natural sciences to tissues,
cells and molecules. This can be considered as the use of knowledge from
working with and manipulating biology to achieve a result that can improve
functions in plants and animals. Relatedly, biomedical
engineering
is an overlapping field that often draws upon and applies biotechnology
(by various definitions), especially in certain sub-fields of biomedical and/or
chemical engineering such as tissue
engineering,
biopharmaceutical engineering, and genetic
engineering.
History
Although
not normally what first comes to mind, many forms of human-derived agriculture clearly fit the
broad definition of "'using a biotechnological system to make
products". Indeed, the cultivation of plants may be viewed as the earliest
biotechnological enterprise.
Agriculture has been theorized
to have become the dominant way of producing food since the Neolithic
Revolution.
Through early biotechnology, the earliest farmers selected and bred the best
suited crops, having the highest yields, to produce enough food to support a
growing population. As crops and fields became increasingly large and difficult
to maintain, it was discovered that specific organisms and their by-products
could effectively fertilize, restore nitrogen, and control pests. Throughout the
history of agriculture, farmers have inadvertently altered the genetics of
their crops through introducing them to new environments and breeding them with other
plants — one of the first forms of biotechnology.
These
processes also were included in early fermentation of beer. These processes were
introduced in early Mesopotamia, Egypt, China and India, and still use the same basic
biological methods. In brewing, malted grains
(containing enzymes) convert starch from
grains into sugar and then adding specific yeasts to produce beer. In
this process, carbohydrates in the grains were
broken down into alcohols such as ethanol. Later other cultures produced the
process of lactic acid fermentation which allowed the fermentation and
preservation of other forms of food, such as soy sauce. Fermentation was
also used in this time period to produce leavened bread. Although the
process of fermentation was not fully understood until Louis Pasteur's work in 1857, it
is still the first use of biotechnology to convert a food source into another
form.
For
thousands of years, humans have used selective breeding to improve production
of crops and livestock to use them for food. In selective breeding, organisms
with desirable characteristics are mated to produce offspring with the same
characteristics. For example, this technique was used with corn to produce the
largest and sweetest crops.
In
the early twentieth century scientists gained a greater understanding of microbiology and explored ways of
manufacturing specific products. In 1917, Chaim Weizmann first used a pure
microbiological culture in an industrial process, that of manufacturing corn starch using Clostridium acetobutylicum, to produce acetone, which the United Kingdom desperately needed
to manufacture explosives during World War I.
Biotechnology
has also led to the development of antibiotics. In 1928, Alexander Fleming discovered the mold Penicillium. His work led to the
purification of the antibiotic compound formed by the mold by Howard Florey,
Ernst Boris Chain and Norman Heatley - to form what we today know as penicillin. In 1940, penicillin
became available for medicinal use to treat bacterial infections in humans.
The
field of modern biotechnology is generally thought of as having been born in
1971 when Paul Berg's (Stanford) experiments in gene splicing had early
success. Herbert W. Boyer (Univ. Calif. at San Francisco) and Stanley N. Cohen
(Stanford) significantly advanced the new technology in 1972 by transferring
genetic material into a bacterium, such that the imported material would be
reproduced. The commercial viability of a biotechnology industry was
significantly expanded on June 16, 1980, when the United States Supreme Court ruled that a genetically
modified
microorganism could be patented in the case of Diamond v. Chakrabarty. Indian-born Ananda
Chakrabarty, working for General Electric, had modified a
bacterium (of the Pseudomonas genus) capable of
breaking down crude oil, which he proposed to use in treating oil spills.
(Chakrabarty's work did not involve gene manipulation but rather the transfer
of entire organelles between strains of the Pseudomonas bacterium.
Revenue
in the industry is expected to grow by 12.9% in 2008. Another factor
influencing the biotechnology sector's success is improved intellectual
property rights legislation—and enforcement—worldwide, as well as strengthened
demand for medical and pharmaceutical products to cope with an ageing, and
ailing, U.S. population.
Rising
demand for biofuels is expected to be good news for the biotechnology sector,
with the Department of Energy estimating ethanol usage could reduce
U.S. petroleum-derived fuel consumption by up to 30% by 2030. The biotechnology
sector has allowed the U.S. farming industry to rapidly increase its supply of
corn and soybeans—the main inputs into biofuels—by developing genetically
modified seeds which are resistant to pests and drought. By boosting farm
productivity, biotechnology plays a crucial role in ensuring that biofuel
production targets are met.
Applications
Biotechnology
has applications in four major industrial areas, including health care
(medical), crop production and agriculture, non food (industrial) uses of crops
and other products (e.g. biodegradable
plastics,
vegetable
oil,
biofuels), and environmental
uses.
For
example, one application of biotechnology is the directed use of organisms for the manufacture
of organic products (examples include beer and milk products). Another example is using
naturally present bacteria by the mining
industry in bioleaching. Biotechnology is
also used to recycle, treat waste, cleanup sites contaminated by industrial
activities (bioremediation), and also to
produce biological
weapons.
A
series of derived terms have been coined to identify several branches of
biotechnology; for example:
- Bioinformatics is an interdisciplinary field which addresses biological problems using computational techniques, and makes the rapid organization as well as analysis of biological data possible. The field may also be referred to as computational biology, and can be defined as, "conceptualizing biology in terms of molecules and then applying informatics techniques to understand and organize the information associated with these molecules, on a large scale." Bioinformatics plays a key role in various areas, such as functional genomics, structural genomics, and proteomics, and forms a key component in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical sector.
- Blue biotechnology is a term that has been used to describe the marine and aquatic applications of biotechnology, but its use is relatively rare.
- Green biotechnology is biotechnology applied to agricultural processes. An example would be the selection and domestication of plants via micropropagation. Another example is the designing of transgenic plants to grow under specific environments in the presence (or absence) of chemicals. One hope is that green biotechnology might produce more environmentally friendly solutions than traditional industrial agriculture. An example of this is the engineering of a plant to express a pesticide, thereby ending the need of external application of pesticides. An example of this would be Bt corn. Whether or not green biotechnology products such as this are ultimately more environmentally friendly is a topic of considerable debate.
- Red biotechnology is applied to medical processes. Some examples are the designing of organisms to produce antibiotics, and the engineering of genetic cures through genetic manipulation.
- White biotechnology, also known as industrial biotechnology, is biotechnology applied to industrial processes. An example is the designing of an organism to produce a useful chemical. Another example is the using of enzymes as industrial catalysts to either produce valuable chemicals or destroy hazardous/polluting chemicals. White biotechnology tends to consume less in resources than traditional processes used to produce industrial goods
The
investment and economic output of all of these types of applied biotechnologies
is termed as "bioeconomy".
Medicine
In
medicine, modern biotechnology finds applications in areas such as pharmaceutical
drug
discovery and production, pharmacogenomics, and genetic testing
(or genetic screening).
DNA
microarray
chip – some can do as many as a million blood tests at once
Pharmacogenomics (a combination of pharmacology and genomics) is the technology
that analyses how genetic makeup affects an individual's response to drugs. It deals with the
influence of genetic variation on drug
response in patients by correlating gene expression or single-nucleotide polymorphisms with a drug's efficacy or toxicity. By doing so,
pharmacogenomics aims to develop rational means to optimize drug therapy, with
respect to the patients' genotype, to ensure maximum
efficacy with minimal adverse effects. Such approaches
promise the advent of "personalized
medicine";
in which drugs and drug combinations are optimized for each individual's unique
genetic makeup.
Computer-generated
image of insulin hexamers highlighting the threefold symmetry, the zinc ions holding it together, and the histidine residues involved in
zinc binding.
Biotechnology
has contributed to the discovery and manufacturing of traditional small molecule pharmaceutical
drugs
as well as drugs that are the product of biotechnology - biopharmaceutics. Modern
biotechnology can be used to manufacture existing medicines relatively easily
and cheaply. The first genetically engineered products were medicines designed
to treat human diseases. To cite one example, in 1978 Genentech developed synthetic
humanized insulin by joining its gene
with a plasmid vector inserted into
the bacterium Escherichia
coli.
Insulin, widely used for the treatment of diabetes, was previously extracted
from the pancreas of abattoir animals (cattle
and/or pigs). The resulting genetically engineered bacterium enabled the
production of vast quantities of synthetic human insulin at relatively low
cost.[21][22] Biotechnology has
also enabled emerging therapeutics like gene therapy. The application of
biotechnology to basic science (for example through the Human
Genome Project)
has also dramatically improved our understanding of biology and as our
scientific knowledge of normal and disease biology has increased, our ability
to develop new medicines to treat previously untreatable diseases has increased
as well.
Genetic
testing
allows the genetic diagnosis of vulnerabilities
to inherited diseases, and can also be
used to determine a child's parentage (genetic mother and father) or in general
a person's ancestry. In addition to
studying chromosomes to the level of
individual genes, genetic testing in a broader sense includes biochemical tests for the
possible presence of genetic diseases, or mutant forms of genes associated with
increased risk of developing genetic disorders. Genetic testing identifies
changes in chromosomes, genes, or proteins.Most of the time,
testing is used to find changes that are associated with inherited disorders.
The results of a genetic test can confirm or rule out a suspected genetic
condition or help determine a person's chance of developing or passing on a genetic disorder. As of 2011 several
hundred genetic tests were in use. Since genetic
testing may open up ethical or psychological problems, genetic testing is often
accompanied by genetic
counseling.
Agriculture
Genetically modified crops ("GM crops", or
"biotech crops") are plants used in agriculture, the DNA of which has been modified using genetic
engineering
techniques. In most cases the aim is to introduce a new trait to the plant which
does not occur naturally in the species.
Examples
in food crops include resistance to certain pests, diseases, stressful
environmental conditions, resistance to
chemical treatments (e.g. resistance to a herbicide), reduction of
spoilage, or improving the
nutrient profile of the crop. Examples in non-food
crops include production of pharmaceutical agents, biofuels, and other
industrially useful goods, as well as for bioremediation.
Farmers
have widely adopted GM technology. Between 1996 and 2011, the total surface
area of land cultivated with GM crops had increased by a factor of 94, from
17,000 square kilometers (4,200,000 acres) to 1,600,000 km2
(395 million acres). 10% of the world's
crop lands were planted with GM crops in 2010. As of 2011, 11
different transgenic crops were grown commercially on 395 million acres (160
million hectares) in 29 countries such as the USA, Brazil, Argentina, India,
Canada, China, Paraguay, Pakistan, South Africa, Uruguay, Bolivia, Australia,
Philippines, Myanmar, Burkina Faso, Mexico and Spain.
Genetically modified foods are foods produced from organisms that have had
specific changes introduced into their DNA using the methods of genetic
engineering.
These techniques have allowed for the introduction of new crop traits as well
as a far greater control over a food's genetic structure than previously
afforded by methods such as selective
breeding
and mutation
breeding. Commercial sale of
genetically modified foods began in 1994, when Calgene first marketed its Flavr Savr delayed ripening
tomato. To date most genetic
modification of foods have primarily focused on cash crops in high demand by
farmers such as soybean, corn, canola, and cotton seed oil. These have been
engineered for resistance to pathogens and herbicides and better nutrient
profiles. GM livestock have also been experimentally developed, although as of
November 2013 none are currently on the market.
There
is broad scientific
consensus
that food on the market derived from GM crops poses no greater risk to human
health than conventional food. GM crops also
provide a number of ecological benefits, if not used in excess. However, opponents
have objected to GM crops per se on several grounds, including environmental
concerns, whether food produced from GM crops is safe, whether GM crops are
needed to address the world's food needs, and economic concerns raised by the
fact these organisms are subject to intellectual property law.
Industrial biotechnology
An
industrial biotechnology plant for the production of modified wheat starch and
gluten
Industrial
biotechnology (known mainly in Europe as white biotechnology) is the
application of biotechnology for industrial purposes, including industrial
fermentation.
It includes the practice of using cells such as micro-organisms, or components of
cells like enzymes, to generate industrially useful products in
sectors such as chemicals, food and feed, detergents, paper and pulp, textiles
and biofuels. In doing so,
biotechnology uses renewable raw materials and may contribute to lowering
greenhouse gas emissions and moving away from a petrochemical-based economy.
Regulation
The
regulation of genetic engineering concerns the approaches taken by governments
to assess and manage the risks associated with the use of genetic
engineering
technology and the development and release of genetically modified organisms
(GMO), including genetically modified crops and genetically modified fish. There are differences in the
regulation of GMOs between countries, with some of the most marked differences
occurring between the USA and Europe. Regulation varies in
a given country depending on the intended use of the products of the genetic
engineering. For example, a crop not intended for food use is generally not
reviewed by authorities responsible for food safety. The European Union
differentiates between approval for cultivation within the EU and approval for
import and processing. While only a few GMOs have been approved for cultivation
in the EU a number of GMOs have been approved for import and processing. The cultivation of
GMOs has triggered a debate about coexistence of GM and nonGM crops. Depending
on the coexistence regulations incentives for cultivation of GM crops differ.
Education
In
1988, after prompting from the United States
Congress A funding mechanism for biotechnology training was
instituted. Universities nationwide compete for these funds to establish Biotechnology
Training Programs
(BTPs). Each successful application is generally funded for five years then
must be competitively renewed. Graduate students in turn compete for
acceptance into a BTP; if accepted, then stipend, tuition and health insurance
support is provided for two or three years during the course of their Ph.D. thesis work. Nineteen institutions
offer NIGMS supported BTPs. Biotechnology
training is also offered at the undergraduate level and in community colleges.
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