Biotechnology, biotechnics & technology guide

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.

Nothing speaks more highly for the benefits that industrial biotechnology has given us than the phosphate water pollution problems that occurred during the 1970`s, which was caused by the use of phosphates in laundry detergents. Biotechnology gave us enzymes which were able to give us the same effect on laundry and in fact were able to remove stains better than phosphates ever could while giving us a non polluting bi based product. This not only benefited the homemaker but also dramatically reduced the phosphate related algal blooms in waters around the world.

A form of industrial biotechnology has been dated as far back as 6000 BC when people fermented grapes to make wine and yeast was used to make beer, knowledge of this increased over the years with the production of cheeses, yogurts, vinegar and other food products.

Then there was a breakthrough in 1928 when Sir Alexander Fleming extracted the drug Penicillin from mould, biotechnology was able to ensure large-scale fermentation techniques of this wonder drug and it was developed to make industrial quantities.

However, it wasn’t until after World War II that the industrial biotechnology revolution began and gave us the industrial biotechnology techniques that we recognise today. Over the last few years, industrial biotechnology has come a long way and has been able to produce enzymes that makes daily life easier and better for all of us and also for the manufacturing sector.

Simple examples of this are the enzyme which is now used to tenderise meat and contact lens fluids that contain enzymes to remove sticky protein deposits more easily. These of course are industrial biotechnology in its simplest form but show that industrial biotechnology involves the use of microbial production of enzymes which are specialised proteins; it is these enzymes which make industrial biotechnology such a powerful new area of technology for the future.