What is BioTechnology? Products, Effects and Jobs
What is Biotechnology? How will you define Biotechnology? Biotechnology can be defined as a technology applied on living organisms (mainly at the cellular or molecular level) to alter their normal life processes to produce useful products or effects which has industrial, commercial or medical relevance.
Useful Products of Biotechnology:
- Pharmaceutical products like antibiotics (Eg: Penicillin).
- Organic acids like Citric acid, Acetic acid etc.
- Alcohols.
- Monoclonal antibodies.
- Genetically modified plants and animals having improved characteristics etc.
Useful Effects of Biotechnology:
Useful effects of B.T include a lot of revolutionary changes in the treatment of chronic diseases using stem-cell therapy, cloning or gene-therapy. The field is very vast and it is widely believed that Biotechnology is the main answer for all the questions ranging from large scale food production to health and longevity .
Biotechnology is not Bio-medical Technology
Bio-medical Technology is concerned with medical equipment, physiology and anatomy of organisms and it does not do much with engineering at cellular level, though there is overlapping when innovations like Bio-chips or DNA micro-arrays come up. Yes, we know no science/technology is independent.
NB: In strict sense, only when technology is applied to modify processes in living organisms in the above mentioned sense, it can be termed Biotechnology. In that sense normal practices of Agriculture or Medicine cannot be taken as coming under Biotechnology.
But now, the term has grown beyond its definition, and is widely used in a broader sense which can be applied to anything related to agriculture, medicine or even life science.
Reference links to know more about Biotechnology
Jobs in Biotechnology
- Sectors : Pharmaceutical, Food Processing, Genetic Engineering, Agriculture, Bioinformatics etc.
- Positions : Research and Development (scientist), Bio-Process Engineer etc.
- Entrepreneurship etc.