Biotechnology

Biotechnology is a technology based on biology, especially when

used in agriculture, food science, and medicine.

Of the many different definitions available, the one formulated by the UN

Convention on Biological Diversity is one of the broadest:

"Biotechnology means any technological application that uses

biological systems, living organisms, or derivatives thereof, to make or

modify products or processes for specific use."

Biotechnology can also be defined with: "Biotechnology is the

manipulation of organisms to do practical things and to provide useful

products."

Biotechnology may be defined as use of biotechnological methods to

modify genetic material of living cells, so they will produce new

substances or new functions. The example is recombinant DNA technique

In which a copy of a piece of dna containing one or a few genes is

transferred between organisms or within the same organism in order to take

beneficial genetic feature from one species to another. The transfer may be

of transgenic and intraspecies nature. If, for instance, we add pest-resistant

traits to yellow corn from white corn, it is intraspecies operation. Adding

the same to wheat is transgenic.

One section of biotechnology is the directed use of organisms for

the manufacture of organic products (examples include beer, milk products,

and skin). Naturally present bacteria are utilized by the mining industry in

bioleaching. Biotechnology is also used to recycle, treat waste, clean up

sites contaminated by industrial activities (bioremediation), and produce

biological weapons.

There are also applications of biotechnology that do not use living

organisms. Examples are DNA microarrays used in genetics and

radioactive tracers used in medicine.

Modern biotechnology is often associated with the use of

genetically altered microorganisms such as E. coli or yeast for the

production of substances like insulin or antibiotics. It can also refer to

transgenic animals or transgenic plants, such as Bt corn. Genetically altered

mammalian cells, such as Chinese Hamster Ovarian (CHO) cells, are also

widely used to manufacture pharmaceuticals. Another promising new

biotechnology application is the development of plant-made

pharmaceuticals.

Biotechnology is also commonly associated with breakthroughs

In new medical therapies and diagnostic devices.

A more recent field in biotechnology is that of genetic

engineering. Genetic modification has opened up many new fields of

biotechnology and allowed the modification of plants, animals, and even

humans on a molecular level.

History

As a matter of fact, biotechnology has a very long history. For

centuries, people have been selecting and harvesting the best seeds to

receve high yields of crops.

Early cultures also understood the importance of using natural

processes to breakdown waste products into inert forms. From very early

nomadic tribes to pre-urban civilizations it was common knowledge that

given enough time organic waste products would be absorbed and

eventually integrated into the soil. It was not until the advent of modern

microbiology and chemistry that this process was fully understood and

attributed to bacteria.

The process of Ethanol fermentation was also one of the first forms

of biotechnology. Cultures such as those in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Iran

developed the process of brewing which consisted of combining malted

grains with specifics yeasts to produce alcoholic beverages. In this process

the carbohydrates in the grains were broken down into sugars such as

alcohol.

Later other cultures produced the process of Lactic acid

fermentation which allowed the fermentation and preservation of other

forms of food. Fermentation was also used in this time period to 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.

Current biotechecnology stemmed from genetics which deals with

the principles of heredity. This scince is known to be born when Gregor,

Austrian monk, physicist and botanist experimented with garden peas in his abbey. He cross-bred such pea’s traits as colour,height and pod size and

showed thet the differences in those traits could be attributed to the rassing

of features and genes. Regretfully, public learned about Mendel’s discovery

decades later, only in 1900.

Another milestone in the history of genetics is the discovery of DNA

structure by British scientists J.Watson and F. Crick. In 1953, they studied

DNA which carries information determining feature cells will have, and

established thet DNA has the structure of ladder-like double helix. But it

was not until 1973 that modern biotechecnology appeared with the

synthesis of genetically modified insulin. S.Cohen and H.Boyer were the

fist to help people with diabetes: they took genetic material from one

organism’s DNA and copy it into another.