Biotechnology

Biotechnology is an exciting, rapidly developing and revolutionary scientific discipline, with its roots in biological and technological sciences. During the past few years, the majority of scientific breakthroughs in biological sciences have came from biotechnology particularly involving genetic engineering.

Biotechnology impinges on everyone's life, and is truly regarded as the scientific technology of the 21 st century.

The term biotechnology represents a fusion or an alliance between biology and technology. Frankly speaking, biotechnology is as old as human civilization, and is an integral part of human life. Thus, biotechnology is a newly discovered discipline of old age practices. There are records that wine and beer were prepared in as early as 6000 B.C., Bread and curd in 4000 B.C. Today, we know all these are the processes based on the natural capabilities of microorganisms.

New Biotechnology 

Many authors prefer to use the term old or traditional biotechnology to the natural processes that have been in use for many centuries to produce beer, wine, curd, cheese and many other foods.

The new or modern biotechnology embraces all the genetic manipulations cell fusion techniques and the improvements made in the old biotechnological processes.

We have to accept that the present day biotechnology is not something new, but it represents a series of technologies, some of them dating back to thousands of years e.g. production of foods, beverages, modification of plants and animals with desired tracts. It is only in recent years that these traditional practices are being subjected to scientific scrutiny, understood and improved, at least in some instances.

Definitions of Biotechnology 

The term biotechnology was introduced in 1917 by a Hungarian engineer, karl Erkey. He defined biotechnology as "all lines of work by which  products are produced from raw materials with aid of living things".

The fact that biotechnology is interdisciplinary in nature, with a wide range of applications has created some confusion with regard to its definition. This is mainly because scientists from each discipline have described the term from their own perspective.

 Around a dozen of selected definitions of biotechnology are given below.

1. The applications of scientific and engineering principles to the processing of materials by biological agents to provide goods and services.
2. The application of biological organisms, systems and process to manufacturing and service industries.
3.  The controlled use of biological agents such as microorganisms or cellular components for beneficial purposes.
4. The integrated use of biochemistry, microbiology, and engineering sciences in order to  achieve technological application of the capabilities of microorganisms, cultured tissues/cells and parts thereof.
5. The use of living organism and their components in agriculture, food and other industries.
6. The use of biological organisms or their constituents for the transformation of inputs into commercial outputs.
7. A technology using biological phenomena for copying and manufacturing various kinds of useful substances.
8. Controlled and deliberate application of simple biological agents- living or dead or cell components- in technically useful operations, either of productive manufacture or as service operation.
9.  The use of living organisms in systems or processes for manufacture of useful products. It may involve bacteria, algae, fungi, yeast, cells of higher plants or animals or subsystems of any of these or isolated components from living matter.
10. The use of living organisms to solve problems or make useful products.
11. The industrial production of goods and services by processes using biological organisms, systems and processes.
12. A set of techniques processes involving biological materials.

In whichever way the term biotechnology has been defined, it essentially represents the use of microbial, animal or plant cells or enzymes to synthesize, breakdown or transform materials.