Biotechnology is the study of technology based on biology that harnesses cellular and biomolecular processes to develop different useful products that help improve our lives and the health of our planet. It is not a new advancement in the area of science. It has been in use for many years, but was not significantly described as biotechnology. Biotechnology simply means utilizing living organisms or their products to revise or change human health or the environment, or to run a process. It itself is the combination of biology and other sciences to create new, innovative products in the agricultural sector, industrial sector and environmental industries. It includes the products such as medicines, vaccines, growth hormones for plants and food additives.
Biotechnology has a wide scope and applications all over the world. These applications include some major areas such as cell culture technology, recombinant DNA technology, cloning, protein engineering, monoclonal antibodies, nanobiotechnology, biosensors and microarrays.
Cell culture technique refers to the removal of cells from an animal or plant and their subsequent growth in a favorable artificial environment, which simply means growing cells outside the body of a living organism. This technique includes the study of plant cell culture, insect cell culture and mammalian cell culture.
Recombinant DNA technology, in the plain sense of the word, means recombining two pieces of DNA from 2 different species. This technique has been used to produce new medicines and vaccine in food industries to slow down the process of spoilage, to control viral diseases, to hamper inflammation, etc.
Cloning is a technique used by scientists to generate exact copies of a genome. Dolly the sheep is a well known example of cloning. Genes, tissues, cells and even whole animal can be cloned through this technique. Protein engineering is another technique in which a protein sequence is modified by substitution, deletion or insertion of nucleotides in the encoding gene. DNA recombinant technique that is meant to improve existing proteins to create new proteins that do not exist in nature which can be used for different aspects such as food processing, drug development or industrial manufacturing.
Monoclonal antibody are laboratory designed products that bind to specific receptors on the surface of cells. Recently, monoclonal antibodies are widely explored for use in immunotherapies and treatments for infectious diseases.
Nanobiotechnology is the study of technology involved in manipulation and manufacture of ultra-small structures and machines that can consist of only a single molecule. This field encompasses the study of specificity and timing of drug delivery, molecular imaging, and also encourage the development of green manufacturing practices.
Biosensors are the devices that convert a biological response into an electrical response. They rely on the specificity of cells and molecules to identify and measure substances at extremely low concentrations, which is why they are highly used to measure the nutritional value, safety and freshness of food, detect explosives, toxins and bio-warfare agents, locate and measure pollutants, and also to provide emergency room physicians with bedside measurements of vital blood components.
Microarray is a laboratory tool that detects the expression of gene structure and functions and enable us to analyze thousands of samples at a time. It works on the principle that complementary sequences will bind to each other. It allows us to monitor gene activity, identify genes and also to detect mutations in disease-related genes.
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