Biotechnology, a blend of biology & technology, it is a highly interdisciplinary field that combines biological sciences with engineering technologies to manipulate living organisms and biological systems to produce products that advances healthcare, medicines, agriculture, food, pharmaceuticals and environment control i.e. biotechnology deals with the use of living systems and organisms to develop or make products, or we can say that, “any technological application that uses bio systems, living organisms or their derivatives thereof, to make or modify products for specific use can be termed as BIOTECHNOLOGY”.
For thousands of years, humankind has used biotechnology in agriculture, food production, and medicine. The term is largely believed to have been coined in 1919 by Hungarian engineer Karoly Ereky.
It can be classified into two main categories: R&D in bio sciences and industrial processes. The biological sciences aspect deals with research and development in areas such as Microbiology, Cell biology, Genetics , Molecular biology etc. for understanding the occurrence and treatment of diseases, development of agriculture, food production, protection of the environment and many more. Most of the R&D work is carried out in laboratory and the industrial processes aspect deals with the production of drugs, vaccines, bio fuels and pharmaceuticals on an industrial scale using biochemical processes and techniques.
The wide concept of “biotech” or “biotechnology” encompasses a wide range of procedures for modifying living organisms according to human purposes, going back to domestication of animals, cultivation of plats and improvements to these through breeding programs that employ artificial selection and hybridization. In the late 20th and early 21 st centuries, biotechnology have expanded its wings to reckon on new and diverse sciences such as genomics recombinant gene techniques, applied immunology, and development of pharmaceutical therapies and diagnostic tests, biotechnology is being enhancing and developing with time and is in continuance to reach more supreme and is spanking in the period.
Article by:- Easha Bahal, M.Tech, Biotechnology
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