The Advances in Biotechnology
Biotechnology can be defined in many ways and although different involved organizations do explain it in their own terms, ultimately, biotechnology is the use of biology as the foundation for developing various technologies as applied to research and product development. So, biotechnology can be used in food science, agriculture, environment, medicine and even robotics fields.
People have always tried to manipulate the environment, but never before have we been so close to controlling it. It started from the time when we started fermenting beer, which went to another level when bacteria were cultured. Now we have moved forward to a point where animal cloning and advanced forms of nucleotide-based organ regeneration are being attempted successfully.
But even before there was a name to call it by, biotechnology was in existence. Even something that people have been doing for centuries, like preservatives to keep food edible during winter, is a form of biotechnology. When around 6000 BC, fruit juice was first fermented to form alcohol, it was another instance of biotechnology. Of course, it has emerged as a science only recently.
About twenty years ago, the role of genetics in artificially creating proteins in a living being was discovered. DNA was discovered and molecular biology became a part of mainstream science. This was what gave rise to the study of biotechnology under that name.
The eighties marked an epoch in biotechnology with the discovery of new concepts, the most important being that modification of genetic structures was possible through combinations of plants and animals. This discovery led to research into fields like disease resistance and increase in productivity rate. Medicine and research in other fields of biology have found the most use for biotechnology. Now, plant-generated pharmaceuticals are common enough, as are creation of insulin and antibiotics.
There are three categories in modern biotechnology. The first is red biotechnology. This concerns the making of substances used in medicine and pharmaceuticals, like vaccines, proteins, antibiotics and vitamins. Red biotechnology also deals with genome manipulation. The other two kinds of biotechnology are green and white biotechnology.
White biotechnology, or bio-manufacturing or Grey Biotechnology is still an evolving science. In this category of biotechnology, organisms like bacteria, moulds, yeast and enzymes are manipulated to make industrial chemicals.
Green Biotechnology is also called Agricultural Biotechnology. As the name suggests, this deals with making crops and other agricultural produce of better quality, like cross-bred wheat harvests.