Application of biotechnology

The applications of biotechnology include therapeutics, diagnostics, genetically modified crops for agriculture, processed food, bioremediation, waste treatment, and energy production. Three critical research areas of biotechnology are:
(i) Providing the best catalyst in the form of improved organism usually a microbe or pure enzyme.
(ii) Creating optimal conditions through engineering for a catalyst to act, and
(iii) Downstream processing technologies to purify the protein/organic compound.
? Biotechnology in medicine

One of the major areas in biotechnology is the medical sector. This is the field in which most of the research is taking place and several breakthroughs have been made. It is also the area that raises the highest number of ethical and legal issues. The scope of biotechnology in medicine is to utilize techniques in living systems to produce therapeutic proteins, which are usually called biopharmaceuticals or recombinant proteins. Products such as monoclonal antibodies, DNA and RNA probes are produced for the diagnosis of various diseases. Additionally, therapeutic protein-based drugs such as insulin and interferon have been synthesized with bacteria for the treatment of human diseases. As previously mentioned, the use of biotechnology in the field of medicine is also known as ‘red’ biotechnology. It deals with many major and minor aspects of human life, from making medicines more effective in terms of cost and efficiency, to tackling one of the most difficult branches of medicine, curing genetic diseases. Red biotechnology covers various potential medicines for diseases such as cancer and AIDS. It can be divided into four main areas: biopharmaceuticals, gene therapy, pharmacogenomics and genetic testing.
As described above, red biotechnology deals with production of medicinal drugs that can be proteins (including antibodies that fight infection) or nucleic acids (DNA or RNA). There is no involvement of chemicals in the synthesis process since they are derived from micro-organisms which synthesize them naturally. The first approved product for therapeutic use was biosynthetic ‘human’ insulin made via rDNA technology. Human insulin replaced the pig insulin that had been previously used and revolutionized the industry with its success. This human insulin, sometimes called rHI, or the trade name Humulin, was developed by Genentech but licensed to Eli Lilly and Company, which manufactured and marketed the product starting in 1982.
The second major field of red biotechnology is gene therapy, which deals with the diagnosis and treatment of genetic diseases and some other diseases such as cancer. This therapy encompasses the manipulation of genes and the correction of defective genes. During this process genes are inserted, deleted or modified. One of the most common forms of gene therapy is the incorporation of functional genes into an unspecified genomic location in order to replace a mutated and dysfunctional gene. Pharmacogenomics and genetic testing both use techniques of red biotechnology that are individual-specific. In pharmacogenomics the genetic information of the individual is derived, and drugs are developed that can be inserted into that particular individual, whereas in genetic testing different tests are conducted among family members to determine genetic diseases, sex and carrier screening. It can also be used in paternity disputes. Monoclonal antibodies, DNA and RNA probes are used for the diagnosis of various diseases and valuable drugs such as insulin and
interferon have been synthesized by bacteria for the treatment of human diseases. DNA fingerprinting is utilized for the identification of parents and criminals. The development of recombinant vaccines for diseases such as human hepatitis B using genetically engineered microbes is one of the list of notable achievements.