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Biotechnology

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: General Biology

   The structure of insulin
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   The structure of insulin

   Biotechnology is technology based on biology, especially when used in
   agriculture, food science, and medicine. The UN Convention on
   Biological Diversity has come up with one of many definitions of
   biotechnology:

          "Biotechnology means any technological application that uses
          biological systems, living organisms, or derivatives thereof, to
          make or modify products or processes for specific use."

   This definition is at odds with common usage in the United States,
   where "biotechnology" generally refers to recombinant DNA based and/or
   tissue culture based processes that have only been commercialized since
   the 1970s. Thus, in common usage, modifying plants or animals by
   breeding, which has been practiced for thousands of years, would not be
   considered biotechnology. This distinction emphasizes that modern,
   recombinant DNA based biotechnology is not just a more powerful version
   of existing technology, but represents something new and different; for
   instance, theoretically, recombinant DNA biotechnology allows us to
   take virtually any gene and express it in any organism; we can take the
   genes that make crimson colour in plants and put them into guinea pigs
   to make pink pets, or, we can take the genes that help arctic fish
   survive the freezing temperatures and put them into food to increase
   the amount of time it can grow before it freezes. This sort of gene
   transfer was virtually impossible with historical processes.

   There has been a great deal of talk - and money - poured into
   biotechnology with the hope that miracle drugs will appear. While there
   do seem to be a small number of efficacious drugs, in general the
   Biotech revolution has not happened in the pharmaceutical sector.
   However, recent progress with monoclonal antibody based drugs, such as
   Genentech's Avastin (tm) suggest that biotech may finally have found a
   role in pharmaceutical sales.

   Biotechnology can also be defined as the manipulation of organisms to
   do practical things and to provide useful products.

   One aspect of biotechnology is the directed use of organisms for the
   manufacture of organic products (examples include beer and milk
   products). For another example, 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.

   Red biotechnology is applied to medical processes. Some examples are
   the designing of organisms to produce antibiotics, and the engineering
   of genetic cures through genomic manipulation.

   White biotechnology, also known as grey biotechnology, is biotechnology
   applied to industrial processes. An example is the designing of an
   organism to produce a useful chemical. White biotechnology tends to
   consume less in resources than traditional processes used to produce
   industrial goods.

   Green biotechnology is biotechnology applied to agricultural processes.
   An example is the designing of transgenic plants to grow under specific
   environmental conditions or in the presence (or absence) of certain
   agricultural 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 eliminating the need for 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.

   Bioinformatics is an interdisciplinary field which addresses biological
   problems using computational techniques. The field is also often
   referred to as computational biology. It 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.

   The term blue biotechnology has also been used to describe the marine
   and aquatic applications of biotechnology, but its use is relatively
   rare.

Biotechnology medical products

   Traditional pharmaceutical drugs are small chemicals molecules that
   treat the symptoms of a disease or illness - one molecule directed at a
   single target. Biopharmaceuticals are large biological molecules known
   as proteins and these target the underlying mechanisms and pathways of
   a malady; it is a relatively young industry. They can deal with targets
   in humans that are not accessible with traditional medicines. A patient
   typically is dosed with a small molecule via a tablet while a large
   molecule is typically injected.

   Small molecules are manufactured by chemistry but large molecules are
   created by living cells: for example, - bacteria cells, yeast
   cell,animal cells.

   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 Ovary (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 landmark breakthroughs
   in new medical therapies to treat diabetes, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C,
   Cancers, Arthritis, Haemophilia, Bone Fractures, Multiple Sclerosis,
   Cardiovascular as well as molecular diagnostic devices than can be used
   to define the patient population. Herceptin, is the first drug approved
   for use with a matching diagnostic test and is used to treat breast
   cancer in women whose cancer cells express the protein HER2.

History

   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 most practical use of biotechnology, which is still present today,
   is the cultivations of plants to produce food suitable to humans.
   Agriculture has been theorized to have become the dominant way of
   producing food since the Neolithic Revolution. The processes and
   methods of agriculture have been refined by other mechanical and
   biological sciences since its inception. Through early biotechnology
   farmers were able to select the best suited and high-yield crops to
   produce enough food to support a growing population. Other uses of
   biotechnology were required as crops and fields became increasingly
   large and difficult to maintain. Specific organisms and organism
   byproducts were used to fertilize, restore nitrogen, and control pests.
   Throughout the use of agriculture farmers have inadvertently altered
   the genetics of their crops through introducing them to new
   environments, breeding them with other plants, and by using artificial
   selection. In modern times some plants are genetically modified to
   produce specific nutritional values or to be economical.

   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 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. 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.

   Combinations of plants and other organisms were used as medications in
   many early civilizations. Since as early as 200 BC people began to use
   disabled or minute amounts of infectious agents to immunize themselves
   against infections. These and similar processes have been refined in
   modern medicine and have lead to many developments such as antibiotics,
   vaccines, and other methods of fighting sickness.

   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.

Global biotechnology trends

   According to Burrill and Company, an industry investment bank, over
   $350 billion has been invested in biotech so far, and global revenues
   have risen from $23 billion in 2000 to more than $50 billion in 2005.
   The greatest growth has been in Latin America but all regions of the
   world have shown strong growth trends.

   There has been little innovation in the traditional pharmaceutical
   industry over the past decade and biopharmaceuticals are now achieving
   the fastest rates of growth against this background, particularly in
   breast cancer treatment. Biopharmaceuticals typically treat sub-sets of
   the total population with a disease whereas traditional drugs are
   developed to treat the population as a whole. However, one of the great
   difficulties with traditional drugs are the toxic side effects the
   incidence of which can be unpredictable in individual patients.

Biotechnology firms

   There are around 4,000 biotechnology firms across the globe. Almost 50%
   of these are in the European Union; 30% in the US and the balance in
   Asia. The leading biotechnology firms are Amgen, Genentech and Serono.

Key visionaries and personalities in biotechnology sector

     * Finland : Leena Palotie
     * Iceland : Kari Stefansson
     * Ireland : Timothy O'Brien, Dermot P Kelleher, Pearse Lyons
     * USA : Kate Jacques, David Botstein, Craig Venter, Sydney Brenner,
       Eric Lander, Leroy Hood, Robert Langer, Henry I. Miller, Roger
       Beachy, William Rutter, George Rathmann, Herbert Boyer, Michael
       West, Thomas Okarma
     * Europe : Paul D Kemp
     * India : Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw ( Biocon)
     * Canada : Mike Tyers

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotechnology"
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