Applications of Biotechnology have been used to work with living organisms, cells, and biological processes in order to create technologies and products that benefit health, agriculture, industry, and the environment. Prominent in application areas are medicine (genetic engineering, vaccines), agriculture (GM crops), environmental sustainability (biofuels, waste management), and the industries (enzymes, fermentation).
What is Biotechnology?
- Using the cells and organisms in biological processes for technological applications and products that better health, agriculture, industry, and environment is called biotechnology.
- It plays an important role in medicine (e.g., genetic engineering and vaccines), agriculture (GM crops), environmental sustainability (e.g., biofuels and waste management), and industry (e.g., enzymes and fermentation).
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Applications of Biotechnology
Nutrient Supplementation
- One of the brightest applications of biotechnology was, therefore, hyped as the integration of nutrients into foods for cases such as airdrops. Hence, food is loaded with heavy nutrients necessary for those situations.
- Such an application would be, for example, Golden Rice production wherein this rice gets infused with beta-carotene. That rice has synthetic Vitamin A that the body can use very quickly.
Abiotic Stress Resistance
- There is a very small amount of land truly arable, some estimates placing it at nearly 20 percent. With the increase in world population, it becomes an imperative that what food sources are available should be made as efficient as possible to produce the most amount of food in the least area. There is also a need for crops that can be grown on less arable regions of the world.
- Hence, ‘stressful’ abiotic factors of salinity, drought, and cold need to be tackled in crop development.
- In those unforgiving consequences of climate of Africa and the Middle East, the practice has greatly helped in the development of growing crops able to stand under further harsh climaxes.
Industrial Biotechnology
- The branch of applied biotechnology that is widening from the formation of cellular structures into the production of biological elements for sundry uses.
- Examples would be the production of new materials for the building industry, and the manufacture of beer and wine, washing detergents, and personal care products.
Strength Fibres
- One of the materials with the greatest tensile strength is in fact the spider web. Spider webs of a certain cross-sectional width exert a greater tensional force before breaking, in competition with steel.
- Such silk has aroused interest in the applications of silk-based materials for applications, including body armor such as bulletproof jackets. The use of silk is considered because it is stronger than Kevlar (which is usually employed to make body armor).
- Genes from spiders have been cloned using biotechnological techniques and introduced into goats to express silk proteins in their milk.
- With this initiative, it makes production quite easier as goats are much easier to handle compared to spiders, and the creation of silk via milk also helps make the processing and handling much more convenient compared to handling the actual silk strands.
Manufacturing of Biofuels
- Biotechnology is widely applied in energy production. With the concern being raised on the dwindling of oil reserves in the world and their environmental hazards, it is saw the need to safeguard the future of this planet by hoping to get alternative green fuel sources.
- Through biotechnology, corn has been made to produce combustible fuel to power automobile engines. The fuels are environmentally friendly in that they do not emit greenhouse gases.
Healthcare Sector
- In biotechnological applications, pharmaceuticals are made that have been difficult to produce by other conventional methods because of purity concerns.
Read our detailed article on Applications of Biotechnology in Health
Food Processing
- Through the fermentation method of microorganisms and their products, raw materials that are non-palatable and easily perishable are converted to edible foods and beverages with an extended shelf life.
Fuel from Waste
- Using bioremediation, waste can be converted into biofuels that are able to run generators.
- Microbes can be induced to produce enzymes required to turn plant and vegetable materials into building blocks for biodegradable plastics.
- Methane can be derived from a type of bacteria that degrades sulfur liquor, which is a waste product of the paper manufacturing industry. The resultant methane can be utilized in other industrial processes or as fuel.
Bio-Polymers and Coating Chemicals
- Biotech processes are foreseen for the production of such chemicals. However, conventional chemical synthesis frequently involves undesirable products such as HCl in large amounts and high energy.
- The chemicals produced through biocatalysts can thus be made more economically and environmentally producible. E.g., Polymer-grade acrylamide.
Hi-Tech Finishing Fabrics
- For fabric and garment finishing, biotechnology in the textile industry aids the creation of biotech cotton-that is more warm, strong, wrinkle & shrink-resistant, with better dye uptake and retention, and improved absorbency.
Detergent Proteases
- These enzymes help modern detergents remove protein impurities and break down starch, protein, or FA-proteins on the various items being washed. The production of protease biomass, on the other hand, also results in a good byproduct-intended organic fertilizer.
Wound Dressings
- Here, it means wound dressings coated with Chitosan, which is a sugar extracted from the shells of shrimp and crabs.
Issues With Application of Biotechnology
The application of biotechnology raises several issues, including:
- Ethical: Genetic modifications among humans, animals, and crops have raised questions about moral boundaries.
- Environmental: Introduced GMOs into the environment might be disturbing the natural balance of how these ecosystems co-exist and sustain their biodiversity.
- Health Risks: Uncertainty lies over what may happen in the distant future to either genetically manipulated foods or gene therapies.
- Patents and Intellectual Markets: Should biotech products be patented, there may be arguments that limit their access or raise affordability concerns for populations.
- In-socio-economic: Biotechnology may be an instrument used to further inequality to benefit certain areas or companies.
- Biosecurity Risks: There is a possibility that it could be misused for malign purposes, e.g., bioweapons.
- Regulatory: It’s apt now to balance between innovation and safety plus acceptance by the public.
Way Forward
In the advance biotechnology in a responsible way, tighter regulatory frameworks would have to be enforced to ensure safety and public trust. Transparency and public involvement may provide the necessary standing in ethical issues and acceptance of biotechnology. Sustainable forms of research and development should be pursued, aiming to curtail hazards to the environment.
If biotechnology becomes an equal opportunity technology, governments, industries, and academia have to collaborate. Strengthening biosecurity will reduce the risk of misuse; meanwhile, enhancing international cooperation will probably ensure their fair use for health and agriculture that will consequently reduce inequalities among regions.
Conclusion
- Progress in the biotech sector is very rapid and poses a lot of potential risks, such as engineered microbes spreading in the wild or threats of usage. Certain ethical controversies arise when a certain group indulges in applications that are deemed unsafe or unethical by others.
- Thus, it is for the bioethicists to address the complexities so as to make a way for modern societies. The recent amendment to India’s Patent Bill reflects an effort to strike a balance between innovation and safety. The COVID-19 pandemic reframed the idea of global investment in healthcare and R&D to portray the necessity of governments’ foresight in supporting strategies that involved collaboration between scientists, civil society, and the private sector.
