The production of biological ...
The production of biological weapons can be divided into several stages, a biological agent must first be chosen and acquired, the production method must be acquired, the agent ...
What is biotechnology?
Biotechnology is the term used to describe a group or collection of technologies which capitalise on the attribute of cells, an example of this is manufacturing capabilities and ...
Agricultural biotechnology
Since time began we humans have always relied on plants and animals to provide us with food, shelter, clothing and fuel, and for thousands of years farmers have ...
Bio energy
Bio energy is any form of energy which can be stored in materials with the help of any living thing, one very simple example of a form of ...
The production of biological ...
The production of biological weapons can be divided into several stages, a biological agent must first be chosen and acquired, the production method must be acquired, the agent ...
What is biotechnology?
Biotechnology is the term used to describe a group or collection of technologies which capitalise on the attribute of cells, an example of this is manufacturing capabilities and ...
Agricultur ...
Since time began we humans have always relied on plants and animals to provide us with food, shelter, clothing and fuel, and for thousands of years farmers have ...
Bio diesel
Bio diesel is an alternative clean burning fuel that is made from domestic renewable resources which is better for the environment. It contains no petroleum but it can ...
Biotechnology is the term used to describe a group or collection of technologies which capitalise on the attribute of cells, an example of this is manufacturing capabilities and their DNA and proteins are made to work for us.
Biotechnology however isn’t something new, we have used biological process for over 6,000 years to achieve more useful food products, such as cheeses and bread and to help us preserve dairy products. It wasn’t however until the 60`s and 70`s that we gained a better understanding of biology and we reached a point where we could start to use only the very smallest part of an organism, the molecules.
Industrial biotechnology is a new and exciting approach to preventing pollution, resource conservation and reducing costs. If biotechnology is able to be developed to its full potential then industrial biotechnology will have a larger impact on the world than health and agricultural biotechnology combined.
It will be able to create new markets and offer businesses a way to reduce costs while protecting the environment. Review times are quicker than with new drugs which means that advancements and the benefits seen in industrial biotechnology can occur in as little as two years from lab study to commercial application.
Biotechnology helps in industry not only by transforming how we are able to manufacture products but it is also able to provide us with new products that we at one time would never have thought possible. How wide a scope of benefits industrial biotechnology has to offer is still not known as the technology is still relatively new but from its very beginning it has integrated product improvements with the prevention of pollution.
Even though great advancements in biotechnology have been made in the last few years biotechnology was around for a long time before we fully realised what we could achieve. Here is the time line:
8000 BC – humans began to domesticate animals and crops and potatoes were cultivated as a means of food.
4000 to 2000 BC – biotechnology was first introduced during this period when the Egyptians began fermenting beer and baking bread. Wine was fermented and the production of cheese began in sumeria, china and Egypt.
500 BC – the first ever antibiotic which was mouldy soybean curdle was used in the treatment of a boil in china.
A.D 100 – powdered chrysanthemums were used as the first form of insecticide in china.
1322 – artificial insemination is first used to produce superior horses in Arabia.
Therapeutics used today have only been made possible with the use of biotechnology, therapeutics which have been approved are commonly used today to treat a wide variety of diseases such as arthritis, hepatitis, genital warts, anaemia, cystic fibrosis, leukaemia and some other cancers.
Without the use of biotechnology, the great advancements into these diseases wouldn’t have been possible. The therapies which are outlined below all shares the same foundation and all of them have been designed by Mother Nature using biological processes and substances, with some of them relying on the body’s own natural method of healing and correcting problems. Here are just a few of the great advancements biotechnology has helped
Using natural products in therapeutics
Almost all living things have compounds which are therapeutic to us, a lot of our antibiotics are derived from naturally occurring microbes, and a great deal of the medicines which are available today are made from plants, such as Digitalis. Biotechnology is now making it easier than ever before for us to be able to tap into the diversity that nature has to offer.
Bio fuels have been around for many years, for as long as any one can remember wood has been burnt as a source of heating and used in cooking, plant matter has always been used to produce methane, a gas which can also be used to provide heat and is totally natural.
However, scientists with the help of biotechnology are studying new and more efficient ways of providing a natural form of gas. Scientist say the future of bio fuel rests on cellulose or more specifically ethanol.
Where does ethanol come from? Ethanol is typically made from the kernels of corn, with corn being composed of starch and simple sugars which easily dissolve in water, once the sugar has been dissolved they are easily fermented by yeast to give us ethanol. The cellulose is the part of the corn which is left over after harvesting the corn kernels, it is the stalks, leaves and parts of the plant that are thought of as crop residues which are made up of ethanol.
With the discovery and introduction of biotechnological drugs, the pharmaceutical industry is rapidly rising, changing and expanding. Biotechnological drugs are any medicines which are therapeutic proteins such as monoclonal antibodies, blood proteins and enzymes that are produced by a living form specifically to help fight disease.
They are usually produced by microbial fermentation or by mammalian cell culture and are not synthetically produced. At this present time there are over 370 new biotechnology medicines in different stages of progress, with the cell cultures being grown under very strict conditions and are regularly maintained in large stainless steel fermentation vats.
Making a biotechnology drug
Producing drugs is a very complicated and a time consuming process with many years just being spent in actually identifying the therapeutic protein, the gene sequence, then has to be determined and a process has to be worked out using biotechnology to produce the molecules. Only after the method has been devised and scaled up can biotechnology medicines be made in large quantities.