- What is biotechnology?
- History of biotechnology
- Types of biotechnology
- Importance of biotechnology
- Uses and applications of biotechnology
- Traditional biotechnology
- Modern biotechnology
We explain what biotechnology is, its history, types and uses. Also, differences between traditional and modern biotechnology.
What is biotechnology?
Biotechnology is the industrial use of biology, that is, to the application of the principles and knowledge about the functioning of the life, to the resolution of problems diaries of human being. Another way of understanding it is that biotechnology is the science who employs organisms live products or their derivatives for technological and industrial purposes.
Biotechnology is based on the knowledge of the chemistry, physical, engineering, biology, medicine and veterinary medicine, to use the processes of life as a transforming tool, applied to compounds and materials organic and inorganic. This does not always imply genetic modification, so the two fields should not be confused.
This type of procedures and knowledge constitute a industry extremely old, which in recent times has acquired its greatest historical potential. Thus created the need for laws in the matter, through international treaties and laws local, to prevent industrial ambition from causing biological or Health to humanity or to environment.
History of biotechnology
The modification of the biological course of other species for the benefit of humanity began at the beginning of civilization with the first agricultural cultures. The domestication of the first species animals (dogs, cats, cows, etc.) and vegetables (corn, wheat, sorghum, etc.) adapted them to live closely with humans.
Thus the human also had access to numerous substances of animal and vegetable origin, many of which could, in turn, be modified at their convenience through the use of certain substances. microorganisms: the yeast for the bread, the bacteria for cheese or for alcoholic beverages. So biotechnology is not exactly new to our history.
However, what is understood today as biotechnology emerged in the mid-twentieth century, with the birth of cellular technologies in the 60s and 70s, especially with regard to the production of pharmacological products.
In this development, the invention of intervention techniques of the DNA of microorganisms, which allowed them to be used as a factory biochemistry, thus obtaining certain protein or substances for medical use, such as insulins, hormones, etc.
The success of this stage in the development of biotechnology subsequently allowed the creation of gene therapies and other disease-fighting mechanisms that instrumentalize the body's own resources, or that make it possible to stop them even before they can develop properly. In it the nanotechnology appears as the future field of development.
At the same time, the farming The world has turned to biotechnology en masse as a source of seeds genetically modified, to sow products that are more resistant to pests, with larger fruits and other similar benefits.
This is how transgenic food arose, which at the beginning of the 21st century is in the eye of the debate regarding its impact on human health and its impoverishing effect on the genetics of the species vegetables cultivated, since technological super seeds benefit from the artificial selection of the human being, putting ordinary seeds in Danger of Extinction.
Types of biotechnology
Biotechnology is classified according to its areas of interest, using a system that assigns each one a specific color:
- Red or medical biotechnology. Also called BioMedicine, it consists of obtaining substances and procedures that allow the preservation of human life, curing diseases or preventing them.
- Green or agricultural biotechnology. That which has to do with the agricultural sector of the productive chain and which seeks to influence the feeding human, through the obtaining of more productive, more resistant species or with new additional properties.
- Blue or marine biotechnology. It is dedicated to the exploration of oceans and its various ecosystems as a possible source of important biotech materials.
- White or industrial biotechnology. It is one that is interested in obtaining Energy, materials or catalysts that can be used by humans, such as bioreactors, biofuels, etc.
- Gray or ecological biotechnology. Unlike the others, its main objective is the preservation of the environment, through the design and production of solutions for environmental disasters, such as pollution or oil spills, among others.
- Golden biotechnology or computer science. Makes up the wing electronics and computing of all these processes, which is twinned with the computing to design mechanisms for processing information of biological origin.
- Brown or del biotech desert. Like the navy, it understands deserts as important sources of biotechnological resources that can be used by humanity.
- Orange or informational biotechnology. It fulfills an informative and pedagogical function, by transmitting in the best possible way the beneficial activities of biotechnology, and also educating about its risks.
- Yellow or nutritional biotechnology. The one who is dedicated to food industry, that is, to obtain food healthier, more resistant, nutritious and / or tasty, by incorporating elements of biological origin.
- Purple or legal biotechnology. It consists of the legal, juridical and ethical branch of the whole of biotechnology, in charge of regulating the activities of the other branches so that they are carried out in an ethical manner.
- Black or war biotechnology. The most dangerous of all, and the most immoral, is that which concerns the development of biological weapons, intended for the war or bioterrorism. Its consequences may well be catastrophic and unpredictable.
Importance of biotechnology
Biotechnology has played a vital role in our historical development as a species. It has allowed us to design a world more suited to our desires, which makes life easier and longer, giving us a huge percentage of control - for better and for worse - over the way in which biological processes occur around us and within us. Body.
This does not mean that we are all powerful, but it does mean that we have been able to solve many of our medical, nutritional, pharmaceutical or health needs. consumption, manipulating other forms of animal and plant life.
Uses and applications of biotechnology
Some specific uses of biotechnology are:
- Industrial production of food or drugs. Through the management of certain species and materials, we can produce substances of biochemical origin that are useful to humanity. For example, using certain mushrooms known as yeasts, we make the dough rise for the bread; or by putting certain bacteria in the presence of certain fungi, we can make the latter secrete antibiotic substances (in fact, this is how penicillin was accidentally discovered).
- Selective crossing of breeding species. By choosing the desired traits to transmit to their offspring, human beings have managed the crossing of certain domestic species at our whim, to obtain, for example, fatter cows or that give more milk, dogs with certain aesthetic traits or of meekness or ferocity , etc.
- Obtaining raw Materials. Through the management of certain animal, plant or microorganism species, we can have access to materials that only they are capable of making, as we have done for centuries with milk from cows or silk from cows. butterflies, raw material for the dairy industry or textile, respectively. The same can be done at the microscopic level with certain types of carbohydrates, useful for pharmaceuticals; or with the cellulose of the plants, useful as a feedstock for biofuels.
- Genetic improvement or genetic engineering. By manipulating the genetic information of microscopic species, we can "program" them to synthesize desired substances in a massive way, or to transmit some type of coding information to other cells (there are therapies that use virus as cell injectors), and we can even design animal and plant embryos endowed with novel traits that benefit, in our opinion, the species as a whole.
Traditional biotechnology
Traditional biotechnology is one that humans have carried out since early times, through domestication, selective breeding, controlled crossing and other traditional techniques that modify the manipulated species slowly and gradually, through artificial selection. .
The techniques of fermentation bacteria to obtain alcoholic beverages are a perfect example of something that the ancient Egyptians already carried out in their time.
Modern biotechnology
Modern biotechnology, on the other hand, is that linked to science and modern engineering. It was born thanks to knowledge specialized in biochemistry, genetics, modern medicine and pharmacology, which require specialized laboratories and techniques very different from the handmade ones that were used in ancient times.
Modern biotechnology has a much greater scope, a greater speed of obtaining results and, at the same time, a much greater factor of risk for humanity and for the other species.