Biotechnology uses organisms and their substances to modify and improve the environment. It has a long history, including the discovery of penicillin. Biotechnology has four main applications: healthcare, agriculture, environmental remediation, and industry.
Biotechnology refers to the use of organisms, or the substances produced by them, to modify or improve the environment in which we live. It is often used in medicine, as well as food science and agriculture. While our understanding of biotechnology has advanced rapidly and dramatically in recent years, it has been around since prehistoric times, making it one of the oldest sciences. Early advances in growing crops for food or sale, as well as animal husbandry, can be considered developments in biotechnology.
The long history of biotechnology has seen such milestones as the realization that fermented fruit juice could be turned into wine and that yeast cells leavened bread dough. More modern biotechnology has led to the development of life-saving drugs and other advances that change, hopefully for the better, the way we live our lives. One of the most famous and most beneficial developments in recent history was the discovery of the antibiotic penicillin in 1928 by Alexander Fleming.
For our time, biotechnology has four main types of applications. The first is healthcare, and that’s often what comes to mind first when most people think of biotechnology. The production and testing of new drugs is a big part of this, as are fields such as gene therapy, which is the use of genetic material to treat and cure diseases at the cellular level. Studies conducted to determine how a person’s genetic makeup affects their response to drugs constitute the field of pharmacogenomics.
Biotechnology has also found numerous applications in agriculture. One of the most promising benefits to agriculture has been to increase yields through genetic engineering and transplantation. The nutritional content of food can also be improved with these methods, as can the taste and texture of food products. Plants can also be engineered to be more resistant to pathogens and predatory insects. This can reduce the need for pesticides, which are generally thought to make food safer to consume, as well as making it less expensive to produce.
Industries not related to health care and agriculture can also benefit from biotechnology. Some organisms can be engineered and adapted to restore or remediate environments that have been contaminated. Waste products and pollutants can be removed and broken down by these engineered organisms. Marine environments can particularly benefit from this branch of biotechnology, due to the numerous man-made risks to which they may be subject.
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