Biotechnology is technology based on biology, especially when used in agriculture, food science, and medicine. The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity has come up with one of many definitions of biotechnology:[1]"Biotechnology has contributed towards the exploitation of biological organisms or biological processes through modern techniques, which could be profitably used in medicine, agriculture, animal husbandry and environmental cloning."
Biotechnology is a popular term for the generic technology of the 21st century. Although it has been utilized for centuries in traditional production processes, modern biotechnology is only 50 years old and in the last decades it has been witnessing tremendous developments. Bioengineering is the science upon which all Biotechnological applications are based. With the development of new approaches and modern techniques, traditional biotechnology industries are also acquiring new horizons enabling them to improve the quality of their products and increase the productivity of their systems.
Before the 1970s, the term, biotechnology, was primarily used in the food processing and agriculture industries. Since the 1970s, it began to be used by the Western scientific establishment to refer to laboratory-based techniques being developed in biological research, such as recombinant DNA or tissue culture-based processes. In fact, the term should be used in a much broader sense to describe the whole range of methods, both ancient and modern, used to manipulate organic to reach the demands of human. So the term can be defined as, "The application of indigenous and/or scientific knowledge to the management of (parts of) microorganisms, or of cells and tissues of higher organisms, so that these supply goods and services of use to human beings.[2]
There has been a great deal of talk—and money—poured into biotechnology with the hope that miracle drugs will appear. While there do seem to be a small number of efficacious drugs, in general the biotech revolution has not happened in the pharmaceutical sector. However, recent progress with monoclonal antibody based drugs, such as Genentech's Avastin suggest that biotech may finally have found a role in pharmaceutical sales.
Biotechnology combines disciplines like genetics, molecular biology, biochemistry, embryology and cell biology, which are in turn linked to practical disciplines like chemical engineering, information technology, and robotics.
Biotechnology is a popular term for the generic technology of the 21st century. Although it has been utilized for centuries in traditional production processes, modern biotechnology is only 50 years old and in the last decades it has been witnessing tremendous developments. Bioengineering is the science upon which all Biotechnological applications are based. With the development of new approaches and modern techniques, traditional biotechnology industries are also acquiring new horizons enabling them to improve the quality of their products and increase the productivity of their systems.
Before the 1970s, the term, biotechnology, was primarily used in the food processing and agriculture industries. Since the 1970s, it began to be used by the Western scientific establishment to refer to laboratory-based techniques being developed in biological research, such as recombinant DNA or tissue culture-based processes. In fact, the term should be used in a much broader sense to describe the whole range of methods, both ancient and modern, used to manipulate organic to reach the demands of human. So the term can be defined as, "The application of indigenous and/or scientific knowledge to the management of (parts of) microorganisms, or of cells and tissues of higher organisms, so that these supply goods and services of use to human beings.[2]
There has been a great deal of talk—and money—poured into biotechnology with the hope that miracle drugs will appear. While there do seem to be a small number of efficacious drugs, in general the biotech revolution has not happened in the pharmaceutical sector. However, recent progress with monoclonal antibody based drugs, such as Genentech's Avastin suggest that biotech may finally have found a role in pharmaceutical sales.
Biotechnology combines disciplines like genetics, molecular biology, biochemistry, embryology and cell biology, which are in turn linked to practical disciplines like chemical engineering, information technology, and robotics.
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