The European Federation of Biotechnology (EFB) defined biotechnology as, “the integral application of knowledge and techniques of chemistry, microbiology, genetics and chemical engineering to draw benefits at the technological level from the properties and capacities of microorganisms and cell cultures”.
The Ministry of International Trade and Industry defines it as, “the use of biological organisms or process in manufacturing industries. Bacteria, yeasts, algae, the cells and tissues of higher plants or of the enzymes isolated from the organisms, provide the active ingredients for new industries and for the replacement of existing chemicals for mechanical process with new or improved industrial microbiological processes”.
The Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) defined biotechnology as, “the application of scientific and engineering principles to the processing of materials by biological agents to provide goods and service”.
The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) defines it as, “the application of biochemistry, biology, microbiology and chemical engineering to industrial process and products and on environment”.
In recent years revolution in biology has occurred due to the potential of biotechnology. Techniques have been developed to produce rare and medicinally valuable molecules, to change hereditary traits of plants and animals, to diagnose diseases to produce useful chemicals and, to clean up and restore the environment. In this way biotechnology has great impact in the fields of health, food/agriculture and environmental protection. Due to rapid development the present situation is that there is no difference between pharmaceutical firms and biotechnology industry.
Biotechnology branches:
1. Tissue Culture Technology: It deals with the culture of cells or tissues of plants and animals in chemically defined media.
2. Pharmaceutical Technology: It is concerned with the production of monoclonal antibodies, interferons, vaccines, toxoids, human growth hormones.
3. Recombinant DNA Technology: It deals with the insertion of desired genes into host cells for manipulating the host DNA.
4. Agricultural Biotechnology: It includes all technologies of crop improvement and the application of biofertilizers and selective biocides in agriculture.
5. Food Biotechnology: It is concerned with the preparation, preservation and utilization of various food items.
6. Fermentation Technology: It deals with culture of cells or microbes in fermenters to produce alcohols, biogas, organic acids, enzymes, antibiotics, etc.
7. Mining and Metal Biotechnology: It is concerned with the use of microbes in mining and extraction of metals from ores.
8. Environmental Biotechnology: It deals with waste recycling, compost making and microbial treatment of pollutants which are otherwise non-biodegradable.
9. Industrial Biotechnology: It deals with the industrial production of desired goods.
Achievements of Biotechnology:
In genetic engineering programmes, it has become possible to map the whole genome of an organism to find out the function of the genes, cut and transfer into another organism. Owing to the success achieved from gene cloning, many products have been obtained through genetically engineered cells, and hopefully many can be produced during the current decade. Recombinant DNA technology has made it easier to detect the genetic diseases and cure before the birth of a child or suggest accordingly. Gene bank and DNA clone bank have been constructed to make available different types of genes of its known function. Thus, recombinant DNA technology has made it possible to develop vaccines against viral and malarial diseases, growth hormones and interferon.
Biotechnology has caused a revolution in agricultural science. Cell culture and protoplast fusion techniques have resulted in hybrid/cybrid plants through inter-generic crosses which generally are not possible through the conventional hybridization techniques. It has also helped in the production of encapsulated seeds, somaclonal variants, disease resistant plants, herbicide and stress-resistant plants, and nif gene and nod gene transfer as well. Through cell culture techniques, industrial production of essential oils, alkaloids, pigments, etc. have been boosted up. However, many more works are to be done on horticulture and forestry plants as far as micropropagation and establishment of mycorrhizal fungi are concerned.
For better yield of agricultural crops, use of biofertilizers (seed bacterization, algalization and green manuring) has become an alternative tool for synthetic chemical fertilizer. The biofertilizers are non-toxic to micro and macro-biota and to humans as well. This would reduce the constrain on fossil-fuel based industries. Moreover, to discourage the use of synthetic pesticides, biocontrol agents have been developed and conditions have been investigated when phenomenon of antagonism take place.
For the protection of environment and abatement of pollution, treatment of sewage, transformation of domestic wastes and xenobiotic chemicals have drawn much attention in recent years. To combat these problems such bacterial plasmids have been developed that could be used to degrade the complex polymers in non-toxic forms. Strains of cyanobacteria, green algae and fungi have been developed which could be used for the treatment of municipal and domestic sewage and industrial discharges into nontoxic forms and renew them as source of energy.
Biotechnology has helped the bio-industries in producing the novel compounds and optimization and scale up products, for example alcohols, acids, antibiotics and enzymes and single cell protein and mycoprotein.
Technologies have also been developed to seek an alternative source of energy from biomaterials generated from agricultural, industrial, forestry and municipal sources. Social forestry and short rotation tree plantation will help to reduce the pressure on forests to meet the demand of fuel in rural sector. In industries, biomass fired system have been developed to meet the energy requirement of engines, such as sugar cane mills. Moreover, urban sewage and plant weeds are used for the production of biogas for cooking and lighting purposes.