Biotechnology

“Biotechnology is a wide discipline that harnesses cellular and biomolecular processes to develop technologies that help in improving the health and lives of the people.”

What is Biotechnology?

Biotechnology is the field that exploits living organisms to make technological advances in various fields for the sustainable development of mankind. It has its applications in the medical as well as agricultural sectors. The biological processes of living organisms have been used for more than 6000 years to make essential products such as bread, cheese, alcohol, etc.
Biotechnology is a broad area biology, involving the use of living systems and organisms to develop or make products. Depending on the tools and applications, it often overlaps with related scientific fields. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, biotechnology has expanded to include new and diverse sciences, such as genomics, recombinant gene techniques, applied immunology, and development of Pharmaceutical therapies and diagnostic tests.

History :

Biotechnology is the application of scientific and engineering principles to the processing of materials by biological agents to provide goods and services. From its inception, biotechnology has maintained a close relationship with society. Although now most often associated with the development of drugs, historically biotechnology has been principally associated with food, addressing such issues as malnutrition and famine. The history of biotechnology begin with zymotechnology commenced with a focus on brewing techniques for beer. By World War I, however, zymotechnology would expand to tackle larger industrial issues, and the potential of industrial fermentation gave rise to biotechnology. However, both the single-cell protein and gasohol projects failed to progress due to varying issues including public resistance, a changing economic scene, and shifts in political power.

Yet the formation of a new field, Genetic engineering, would soon bring biotechnology to the forefront of science in society, and the intimate relationship between the scientific community, the public, and the government would ensue. These debates gained exposure in 1975 at the Asilomar Conference, where Joshua Lederberg was the most outspoken supporter for this emerging field in biotechnology. By as early as 1978, with the development of synthetic human insulin, Lederberg's claims would prove valid, and the biotechnology industry grew rapidly. Each new scientific advance became a media event designed to capture public support, and by the 1980s, biotechnology grew into a promising real industry. In 1988, only five proteins from genetically engineered cells had been approved as drugs by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but this number would skyrocket to over 125 by the end of the 1990s.

The field of genetic engineering remains a heated topic of discussion in today's society with the advent of gene therapy, stem cell research, cloning, and genetically modified food. While it seems only natural nowadays to link pharmaceutical drugs as solutions to health and societal problems, this relationship of biotechnology serving social needs began centuries ago.

Origins of biotechnology

Biotechnology arose from the field of zymotechnology or zymurgy, which began as a search for a better understanding of industrial fermentation, particularly beer. Beer was an important industrial, and not just social, commodity. In late 19th-century Germany, brewing contributed as much to the gross national product as steel, and taxes on alcohol proved to be significant sources of revenue to the government.In the 1860s, institutes and remunerative consultancies were dedicated to the technology of brewing. The most famous was the private Carlsberg Institute, founded in 1875, which employed Emil Christian Hansen, who pioneered the pure yeast process for the reliable production of consistent beer. Less well known were private consultancies that advised the brewing industry. One of these, the Zymotechnic Institute, was established in Chicago by the German-born chemist John Ewald Siebel.

The heyday and expansion of zymotechnology came in World War I in response to industrial needs to support the war. Max Delbrück grew yeast on an immense scale during the war to meet 60 percent of Germany's animal feed needs.Compounds of another fermentation product, lactic acid, made up for a lack of hydraulic fluid, glycerol. On the Allied side the Russian chemist Chaim Weizmann used starch to eliminate Britain's shortage of acetone, a key raw material for cordite, by fermenting maize to acetone.The industrial potential of fermentation was outgrowing its traditional home in brewing, and "zymotechnology" soon gave way to "biotechnology."

With food shortages spreading and resources fading, some dreamed of a new industrial solution. The Hungaria Károly Ereky coined the word "biotechnology" in Hungary during 1919 to describe a technology based on converting raw materials into a more useful product. He built a slaughterhouse for a thousand pigs and also a fattening farm with space for 50,000 pigs, raising over 100,000 pigs a year. The enterprise was enormous, becoming one of the largest and most profitable meat and fat operations in the world. In a book entitled Biotechnologie, Ereky further developed a theme that would be reiterated through the 20th century: biotechnology could provide solutions to societal crises, such as food and energy shortages. For Ereky, the term "biotechnologie" indicated the process by which raw materials could be biologically upgraded into socially useful products.
This catchword spread quickly after the First World War, as "biotechnology" entered German dictionaries and was taken up abroad by business-hungry private consultancies as far away as the United States. In Chicago, for example, the coming of prohibition at the end of World War I encouraged biological industries to create opportunities for new fermentation products, in particular a market for nonalcoholic drinks. 

Emil Siebel, the son of the founder of the Zymotechnic Institute, broke away from his father's company to establish his own called the "Bureau of Biotechnology," which specifically offered expertise in fermented nonalcoholic drinks.
The belief that the needs of an industrial society could be met by fermenting agricultural waste was an important ingredient of the "chemurgic movement". Fermentation-based processes generated products of ever-growing utility. In the 1940s, penicillin was the most dramatic. While it was discovered in England, it was produced industrially in the U.S. using a deep fermentation process originally developed in Peoria, Illinois.The enormous profits and the public expectations penicillin engendered caused a radical shift in the standing of the pharmaceutical industry. Doctors used the phrase "miracle drug", and the historian of its wartime use, David Adams, has suggested that to the public penicillin represented the perfect health that went together with the car and the dream house of wartime American advertising. Beginning in the 1950s, fermentation technology also became advanced enough to produce steroids on industrially significant scales.Of particular importance was the improved 

semisynthesis of cortisone which simplified the old 31 step synthesis to 11 steps.This advance was estimated to reduce the cost of the drug by 70%, making the medicine inexpensive and available.Today biotechnology still plays a central role in the production of these compounds and likely will for years to come.

Let us have a look at the various types and applications of biotechnology in various fields.

Types of Biotechnology

Biotechnology is divided into the following types:

Medical Biotechnology

Medical biotechnology involves the use of living cells to develop technologies for the improvement of human health. It involves the use of these tools to find more efficient ways of maintaining human health. It also helps in the study of DNA to identify the causes of genetic disorders and methods to cure them.
Vaccines and antibiotics have been developed with the help of medical biotechnology that are essential for human health. Several plants are genetically engineered to produce antibodies with the help of biotechnology.

Agricultural Biotechnology

This field deals with the development of genetically modified plants by introducing the gene of interest in the plant. This, in turn, helps in increasing the crop yield.
Various pest resistant crops such as Bt-cotton and Bt-brinjal are created by transferring the genes from Bacillus thuringiensis into the plants.
The animals with the most desirable characteristics are bred together to obtain the offspring with the desired traits.

Industrial Biotechnology

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 microorganisms, 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 the current decades, significant progress has been done in creating genetically modified organisms (GMOs) that enhance the diversity of applications and economical viability of industrial biotechnology. By using renewable raw materials to produce a variety of chemicals and fuels, industrial biotechnology is actively advancing towards lowering greenhouse gas emissions and moving away from a petrochemical-based economy.

Environmental Biotechnology

The environment can be affected by biotechnologies, both positively and adversely. Vallero and others have argued that the difference between beneficial biotechnology (e.g.bioremediation is to clean up an oil spill or hazard chemical leak) versus the adverse effects stemming from biotechnological enterprises (e.g. flow of genetic material from transgenic organisms into wild strains) can be seen as applications and implications, respectively.Cleaning up environmental wastes is an example of an application of environmental biotechnology; whereas loss of biodiversity or loss of containment of a harmful microbe are examples of environmental implications of biotechnology.

Applications Of Biotechnology

Following are the important applications of biotechnology:

Nutrient Supplementation

Nutrients can be infused into food in situations of aid. For eg., Golden rice is prepared by the infusion of beta-carotene into rice.

Abiotic Stress

Biotechnology helps in the production of crops that can handle abiotic stress such as cold, drought, salinity, etc. In the regions with extreme climatic conditions, such crops have proved beneficial in withstanding the harsh climate.

Industrial Biotechnology

Biotechnology involves the production of alcohol, detergents, cosmetic products, etc. It involves the production of biological elements and cellular structures for numerous purposes.

Strength Fibres

Spider webs have materials with strongest tensile strength. The genes from the spiders have been picked up through biotechnological techniques and infused in goats to produce silk proteins in their milk. This helps in the production of silk easily.

Biofuels

Biotechnology is widely used in energy production. Due to the depletion of natural resources, there is a need to find an alternative source. Such fuels are produced by using biotechnology tools. These are environment friendly and do not release any greenhouse gas.

Healthcare

Biotechnology is applied in the development of pharmaceuticals that had proven problematic when produced through conventional means due to purity concerns.

HOW DOES BIOTECHNOLOGY HELP US?

Satellite images make clear the massive changes that mankind has made to the surface of the Earth: cleared forests, massive dams and reservoirs, millions of miles of roads. If we could take satellite-type images of the microscopic world, the impact of biotechnology would be no less obvious. The majority of the food we eat comes from engineered plants, which are modified – either via modern technology or by more traditional artificial selection – to grow without pesticides, to require fewer nutrients, or to withstand the rapidly changing climate. Manufacturers have substituted petroleum-based ingredients with biomaterials in many consumer goods, such as plastics, cosmetics, and fuels. Your laundry detergent? It almost certainly contains biotechnology. So do nearly all of your cotton clothes.
But perhaps the biggest application of biotechnology is in human health. Biotechnology is present in our lives before we’re even born, from fertility assistance to prenatal screening to the home pregnancy test. It follows us through childhood, with immunizations and antibiotics, both of which have drastically improved life expectancy. Biotechnology is behind blockbuster drugs for treating cancer and heart disease, and it’s being deployed in cutting-edge research to cure Alzheimer’s and reverse aging. The scientists behind the technology called CRISPR/Cas9 believe it may be the key to safely editing DNA for curing genetic disease. And one company is betting that organ transplant waiting lists can be eliminated by growing human organs in chimeric pigs.