MODULE 14 BIOTECHNOLOGY

Objectives

At the end of this module, the students should be able to:

1. Explain what is biotechnology all about;

2. Discuss the history of biotechnology;
3. Give the different application of biotechnology; and
4. Evaluate the criticism labelled against biotechnology.

What is Biotechnology?

Biotechnology is just what the term implies – the application (technology) of the science of
life (bio). It is the technology based on biology especially when used in agriculture, food science and
medicine. The United States Congress defined it as any technique that uses living organisms (or part
of the organism) to make or modify products, to improve plants and animals, or to develop
microorganisms for specific uses.

Biotechnology is often used to refer to the genetic engineering technology of the 21 st

century; however, the term encompasses a wider range and history of procedures for modifying
biological organisms according to the needs of humanity, going back to the initial modifications of
native plants into improved food crops through artificial selection and hybridization. Bioengineering
is the science upon which all biotechnological applications are based. With the development of new
approaches and modern techniques, traditional biotechnology industries are also acquiring new
horizons enabling them to improve the quality of their products and increase the productivity of
their systems.

Before 1971, the term biotechnology was primarily used in the food processing and
agriculture industries. Since the 1970s, it began to be used by the Western scientific establishment
to refer to laboratory-based techniques being developed in biological research, such as recombinant
DNA or tissue culture-based process, or horizontal gene transfer in living plants, using vectors such
as the Agrobacterium bacteria to transfer DNA into a host organism. In fact, the term should be used
in a much broader sense to describe the whole range of methods, both ancient and modern, used to
manipulate organic materials to reach the demands of food production. So the term could be
defined as, “the application of indigenous and/or scientific knowledge to the management of (parts
of) microorganisms, or of cells and tissues of higher organism so that these can supply goods and
services of use to the food industry and its consumers.”

Biotechnology combines disciplines like genetics, molecular biology, embryology,

biochemistry and cell biology, which are, in turn, linked to practical disciplines like chemical
engineering, information technology and robotics.
History of Biotechnology

The most practical use of biotechnology, which is still present today, is the cultivation of
plants to produce food suitable for humans. Agriculture has been theorized to have become the
dominant way of producing food since the Neolithic Revolution. The process and methods of
agriculture have been refined by other mechanical and biological sciences since their inception.
Through early biotechnology, farmers were able to select the best suited and highest-yield crops to
produce enough food to support a growing population. Other uses of biotechnology were required
as crops and fields became increasingly large and difficult to maintain. Specific organisms and
organism by products were used to fertilize, restore nitrogen, and control pests. Throughout the
existence of agriculture, farmers have inadvertently altered the genetics of their crops through
introducing them to new environments and breeding them with other plants-one of the first forms
of biotechnology. Cultures such as those Mesopotomia, Egypt, and Iran developed the process of
brewing beer. It is still done by the same basic method of using malted grains (containing enzymes)
to convert starch from grains into sugar and then adding specific yeasts to produce beer. In this
process, the carbohydrates in the grains are broken down into alcohols such as ethanol. Later, other
cultures produced the process of lactic acid fermentation which allowed the fermentation and
preservation of other forms of food. Fermentation was also used in this time period to produce
leavened bread. Although the process of fermentation was not fully understood until Louis Pasteur’s
work in 1857, it is still the first use of biotechnology to convert a food source into another form.

Combinations of plants and other organisms were used as medications in many early
civilizations. Since as early as 200 BC, people began to use disabled or minute amounts of infectious
agents to immunize themselves against infections. These and similar processes have been refined in
modern medicine and have led to many development such as antibiotics, vaccines, and other
methods of fighting sickness.

In the early twentieth century, scientists gained a greater understanding of microbiology and
explored ways of manufacturing specific products. In 1917, Chaim Weizmann first used a pure
microbiological culture in an industrial process, that of manufacturing corn starch using Clostridium
acetobufylicum to produce acetone, which the United kingdom desperately needed to manufacture
explosives during World War I.

The field of modern biotechnology is thought to have largely begun on June 16, 1980, when
the United States Supreme Court ruled that a genetically-modified microorganism (GMO) could be
patented in the case of Diamond V. Chakrabarty. Indian-born Anada Chakrabarty; working for
General Electric, had developed a bacterium (derived from the Pseudomonas genus) capable of
breaking down crude oil, which he proposed to use in treating oil spills. A university in Florida is now
studying ways to prevent tooth decay. They altered the bacteria in the tooth called Streptococcus
mutants by stripping it down so it could not produce lactic acid.

Applications of Biotechnology

Biotechnology has applications in four major industrial areas, including health care
(medical), crop production and agriculture, non-food (industrial) uses of crops and other products,
and environmental uses. One application of biotechnology is the directed use of organisms for the
manufacture of organic products (examples include beer and milk products). Another example is
using naturally present bacteria by the mining industry in bioleaching. Biotechnology is also used to
recycle, treat waste, clean-up sites contaminated by industrial activities (bioremediation), and also
to produce biological weapons.

A series of derived terms have been coined to identify several branches of biotechnology, for
example:

 Red biotechnology is applied to medical processes. Some examples are the

designing of organisms to produce anti-biotic, and the engineering of genetic cures
through genomic manipulation.
 Green biotechnology is biotechnology applied to agriculture processes. An example
would be the selection and domestication of plants via micropopagation. Another
example is the designing of transgenic plants to grow under specific environmental
conditions or in the presence (or absence) of certain agricultural chemicals. One
hope is that green biotechnology might produce more environmentally friendly,
solutions than traditional industrial agriculture. An example of this is the engineering
of a plant to express a pesticide, thereby eliminating the need for external
application of pesticides. An example of this would be Bt corn. Whether or not green
biotechnology products such as this are ultimately more environmentally friendly is
a topic of considerable debate.
 White biotechnology also known as industrial biotechnology, is biotechnology
applied to industrial processes. An example is the designing of an organism to
produce a useful chemical. Another example is the using of enzymes as industrial
catalysts to either produce valuable chemicals or destroy hazardous/polluting
chemicals. White biotechnology tends to consume less in resources than traditional
processes used to produce industrial goods.
 Blue biotechnology is a term that has been used to describe the marine and aquatic
applications of biotechnology, but its use is relatively rare.
 The investments and economic output of all of these types of applied
biotechnologies form what has been described as the bioeconomy.
 Bioinformatics is an interdisciplinary field which addresses biological problems using
computational techniques and makes the rapid organization and analysis of
biological data possible. The field may also be referred to as computational biology,
and can be defined as, “conceptualizing biology in terms of molecules and then
applying informatics techniques to understand and organized the information
associated with these molecules, on a large scale.” Bioinformatics plays a key role in
various areas, such as functional genomics, structural genomics, ands proteomics,
and forms a key component in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical sector.
1. Health Care (Medical)
In medicine, modern biotechnology finds promising applications in such areas as:
pharmacogenomics, drug production, genetic testing, and gene therapy.
Pharmacogenomics is the study of how the genetic inheritance of an individual
affects his/her body’s response to drugs. It is a coined word derived from the words
“pharmacology” and “genomics”. It is hence the study of relationship between
pharmaceuticals and genetics. The vision of pharmacogenomics is to be able to design
 and produce drugs that are adapted to each person’s genetic makeup.
Pharmacogenomics results in the following benefits:
1. Development of tailor-made medicines. Using pharmacogenomics, pharmaceutical
companies can create drugs based on the proteins, enzymes and RNA molecules
that are associated with specific genes and diseases. The tailor-made drugs promise
not only to maximize therapeutic effects but also to decrease damage to nearby
healthy cells.
2. More accurate methods of determining appropriate drug dosages. Knowing a
patient’s genetics will enable doctors to determine how well his/her body can
process and metabolize a medicine. This will maximize the value of the medicine
and decrease the likelihood of overdose.
3. Improvements in the drug discovery and approval process. The discovery of
potential therapies will be made easier using genome targets. Genes have been
associated with numerous diseases and disorders. With modern biotechnology,
these genes can be used as targets for the development of effective new therapies
which could significantly shorten the drug discovery process.
4. Better vaccines. Safer vaccines can be designed and produces by organisms
transformed by means of genetic engineering. These vaccines will elicit the immune
response without the attendant risks of infection. They will be inexpensive, stable,
easy to store, and capable of being engineered to carry several strains of pathogens
at once.

Genetic Testing

Genetic testing involves the direct examination of the DNA molecule itself. A scientist scans
a patient’s DNA sample for mutated sequences.

There are two major types of gene tests. In the first type, a researcher may design short
pieces of DNA (“probes”) whose sequences are complementary to the mutated sequences. These
probes will seek their complementary among the base pairs of an individual’s genome. If the
mutated sequence is present in the patient’s genome, the probe will bind to it and flag the mutation.
In the second type, a researcher may conduct the gene test by comparing the sequence of DNA
bases in a patient’s gene to disease in healthy individuals or their progeny.

Genetic testing is now used for:

 Determining sex
 Carrier screening, or the identification of unaffected individuals who carry one copy of a
gene for a disease that requires two copies for the disease to manifest
 Prenatal diagnostic screening
 Newborn screening
 Presymptomatic testing for predicting adult-onset disorders
 Presymptomatic testing for estimating the risk of developing adult-onset cancers
 Confirmational diagnosis of symptomatic individuals
 Forensic/identity testing

Some genetic tests are already available, although most of them are used in developed
countries. The tests currently available can detect mutations associated with rare genetic
disorders like cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia, and Huntington’s disease. Recently, tests have
 been developed to detect mutation for a handful of more complex conditions such as breast,
ovarian, and colon cancers. However, gene tests may not detect every mutation associated with
a particular condition because many are as yet undiscovered, and the ones they do detect may
present different risks to different people and populations.

Several issues have been raised regarding the use of genetic testing:

1. Absence of cure. There is still a lack of effective treatment or preventive measures for many
diseases and conditions now being diagnosed or predicted using gene tests. Thus, revealing
information about the risk of a future disease that has no existing cure presents an ethical
dilemma for medical practitioners.
2. Ownership and control of genetic information. Who will own and control genetic
information, or information about genes, gene products, or inherited characteristics derived
from an individual or a group of people like indigenous communities? At the macro level,
there is the possibility of a genetic divide, with developing countries that do not have access
to medical applications of biotechnology being deprived of benefits accruing from products
derived from genes obtained from their own people. Moreover, genetic information can
pose a risk for minority population groups as it can lead to group stigmatization.
3. Reproductive issues. These include the use of genetic information in reproductive decision-
making and the possibility of genetically altering reproductive cells that may be passed on to
future generations. For example, germline therapy forever changes the genetic make-up of
an individual’s descendants. Thus, any error in technology or judgement may have far-
reaching consequences. Ethical issues like designer babies and human cloning have also
given rise to controversies between and among scientists and bioethicists, especially in the
light of past abuses with eugenics.
4. Clinical issues. These center on the capabilities and limitations of doctors and other health-
service providers, people identified with genetic conditions, and the general public in dealing
with genetic information.
5. Effects on social institutions. Genetic tests reveal information about individuals and their
families. Thus, test results can affect the dynamics within social institutions, particularly the
family.
6. Conceptual and philosophical implications regarding human responsibility, free will vis-à-vis
genetic determinism, and the concepts of health and disease.

Gene Therapy
Gene therapy using an Adenovirus vector. A new gene is inserted into an adenovirus vector,
which is used to introduce the modified DNA into a human cell. If the treatment is successful, the
new gene will make a functional protein.

Gene therapy may be used for treating, or even curing, genetic and acquired diseases like
cancer and AIDS by using normal genes to supplement or replace defective genes or to bolster a
normal function such as immunity. It can be used to target somatic (i.e.,body) or germ (i.e., egg and
sperm) cells. In somatic gene therapy, the genome of the recipient is changed, but this changed is
not passed along to the next generation. In contrast, in germline gene therapy, the egg and sperm
cells of the parents are changed for the purpose of passing on the change to their offspring.

There are basically two ways of implementing a gene therapy treatment:

1. Ex vivo, which means “outside the body” – Cells from the patient’s blood or bone marrow
are removed and grown in the laboratory. They are then exposed to a virus carrying the
desired gene. The virus enters the cells, and the desired gene becomes part of the DNA of
 the cells. The cells are allowed to grow in the laboratory before being returned to the
patient by injection into a vein.
2. In vivo, which means “inside the body” – No cells are removed from the patient’s body.
Instead, vectors are used to deliver the desired gene to cells in the patient’s body.

Currently, the use of gene therapy is limited. Somatic gene therapy is primarily at the
experimental stage. Gene therapy is the subject of much discussion but it is not being actively
investigated in larger animals and human beings.

Gene therapy faces many obstacles before it can become a practical approach for treating
disease. At least four of these obstacles are as follows:

1. Gene delivery tools. Genes are inserted into the body using gene carriers called vectors. The
most common vectors now are viruses, which have evolved a way of encapsulating and
delivering their genes to human cells in a pathogenic manner. Scientists manipulate the
genome of the virus by removing the disease-causing genes and inserting the therapeutic
genes. However, while viruses are effective, they can introduce problems like toxicity,
immune and inflammatory responses, and gene control and targeting issues.
2. Limited knowledge of the functions of genes. Scientists currently know the functions of only
a few genes. Hence, gene therapy can address only some genes that cause a particular
disease. Worse, it is known exactly whether genes have more than one function, which
creates uncertainty as to whether replacing such genes is indeed desirable.
3. Multigene disorders and effects and environment. Most genetic disorders involve more
than one gene. Moreover, most diseases involve the interaction of several genes and the
environment. For example, many people with cancer not only inherit the disease gene for
the disorder, but may have also failed to inherit specific tumor suppressor genes. Diet,
exercise, smoking and other environmental factors may have also contributed to their
disease.

4. High costs. Since gene therapy is relatively new and at an experimental stage, it is an
expensive treatment to undertake. This explains why current studies are focused on illnesses
commonly found in developed countries, where more people can afford to pay for
treatment. It may take decades before developing countries can take advantage of this
technology.

2. Agriculture

Biotechnology provides a more precise way to give crops specific beneficial traits:

1. Improve yield from crops. Using the techniques of modern biotechnology, one or two genes
may be transferred to a highly developed crop variety to impart a new character that would
increase its yield. However, while increases in crop yield are the most obvious applications of
modern biotechnology in agriculture, it is also the most difficult one. Current genetic
engineering techniques work best for effects that are controlled by a single gene. Many of
the genetic characteristics associated with yield (e.g., enhanced growth) are controlled by a
large number of genes, each of which has a minimal effect on the overall yield. There is,
therefore, much scientific work to be done in this area.
2. Reduced vulnerability of crops to environmental stresses. Crops containing genes that will
enable them to withstand biotic and abiotic stresses may be developed. For example,
drought and excessively salty soil are two important limiting factors in crop productivity.
Biotechnologists are studying plants that can cope with these extreme conditions in the
hope of finding the genes that will enable them to do so and eventually transferring these
genes to the more desirable crops.
 3. Increased nutritional qualities of food crops. Proteins in foods may be modified to increase
their nutritional qualities. Proteins in legumes and cereals may be transformed to provide
the amino acids needed by human beings for a balanced diet.
4. Improved taste, texture or appearance of food. Modern biotechnology can be used to slow
down the process of spoilage so that fruit can ripen longer on the plant and then be
transported to the consumer with a still reasonable shelf life. This improves the taste,
texture and appearance of the fruit. More importantly, it could expand the market for
farmers in developing countries due to the reduction in spoilage.
5. Reduced dependence on fertilizers, pesticides and other agrochemicals. Most of the current
commercial applications of modern biotechnology in agriculture are on reducing the
dependence of farmers on agrochemicals.
6. Production of novel substances in crop plants. Biotechnology is being applied for novel uses
other than food. For example, oilseed can be modified to produce fatty acids for detergents,
substitute fuels and petrochemicals. Potato, tomato, rice and other plants including
safflower, tobacco and even lettuce plants have been genetically engineered to produce
insulin and certain vaccines. If future clinical trials prove successful, the advantages of edible
vaccines would be enormous, especially for developing countries. The transgenic plants may
be grown locally and cheaply. Home grown vaccines would also avoid logistical and
economic problems posed by having to transport traditional preparations over long
distances and keeping them cold while in transit. And since they are edible, they will not
preparations but also a source of infection if contaminated. In the case of insulin grown in
transgenic plants, it might not be administered as an edible protein, but it could be
produced at significantly lower cost than insulin produced in costly bioreactors.
3. Industrial (Biological Engineering)

Biotechnological engineering or biological engineering is a branch of engineering that

focuses on biotechnologies and biological science. It includes different disciplines such as bio-
chemical engineering, biomedical engineering, bio-process engineering, bio system engineering and
so on. Because of the novelty of the field, the definition of a bioengineer is still undefined. However,
in general it is an integrated approach of fundamental biological sciences and traditional engineering
principles.

Bioengineers are often employed to scale up bio processes from the laboratory scale to the
manufacturing scale. Moreover, as with most engineers, they often deal with management,
economic and legal issues. Since patents and regulations (e.g. FDA regulation in the U.S) are very
important issues for biotech enterprises, bioengineers are often required to have knowledge related
to these issues.

The increasing number of biotech enterprises is likely to create a need for engineers in the
years to come. Many universities throughout the world are now providing programs in
bioengineering and biotechnology (as independent programs or specialty programs within more
established engineering fields).

4. Environment Uses
Biotechnology is being used to engineer and adapt organisms especially microorganisms in
an effort to find sustainable ways to clean up contaminated environments. The use of
microorganisms to clean up various type of wastes including industrial wastes and other
pollutants (e.g., herbicides and pesticides) is called as bioremediation. The elimination of a
wide range pollutants and wastes from the environment is an absolute requirement to
promote a sustainable development of our society with low environmental impact,
biological processes play a major role in the removal of contaminants and biotechnology is
taking advantage of the astonishing catabolic versatility of microorganisms to
degrade/convert such compounds. New method-logical breakthroughs in sequencing,
genomics, proteomics, bioinformatics and managing Are producing vast amounts of