Biotechnology is also being applied in more direct ways to environmental cleanup. A process called bioremediation uses microorganisms to reduce, eliminate, or contain contaminants. How does all this affect your everyday life? Such common products as vitamins, paper and faded blue jeans can now be manufactured with less energy and pollution. These enzymes have replaced the phosphates that used to be a serious pollutant for the nation's rivers and streams. Crops improved through biotechnology not only improve farming efficiency, but also provide a softer environmental footprint than traditional agricultural practices.
Growing biotech crops also reduces soil erosion by up to 90 percent compared to conventional cultivation, saving valuable topsoil, improving soil fertility, and dramatically reducing sedimentation in lakes, ponds, and waterways. In developing countries with growing populations, the greatest threat to wildlife habitat and biodiversity is the need to convert these fragile environments to farmland to feed people. By increasing yields on cropland already dedicated to farming, more of these remaining spaces can be preserved.
In , the year anniversary of commercialized biotech crops, the one-billionth biotech acre was planted.
Farmers in 17 countries are growing more than million acres of crops improved through biotechnology. Soybeans, corn, cotton and canola have been enhanced to resist insects and herbicides, allowing farmers to increase productivity. Feeding the world's growing population is a challenge as the best farmland is already in production. Scientists are developing new crops that are salt and drought tolerant to produce higher yields in marginal cropland.
Military units and disaster responders face new and dangerous threats from biological and chemical agents. Biotechnology-produced enzymes can now break down toxic chemicals, including nerve gases such as sarin and somain, in a way that is effective, convenient and enviromentally benign.
These enzymes can be added to water and sprayed at the site of attack. Scientists are also modifying mustard plants to serve as "sentinel plants" that warn of chemical warfare agents or animal pathogens such as anthrax. Recently, a Danish company announced it had developed a plant that can be used to detect land mines by changing colors when its roots encounter a mine. DNA fingerprinting, a biotech process, has transformed criminal investigation and forensic medicine, as well as afforded significant advances in anthropology and wildlife management.
Right now, scientists are developing plants that produce medicines. Today, researchers are working with plants such as rice and tobacco to produce proteins for life-saving biotech drugs.
This kind of cutting-edge biotech research is under way all over the world, on every continent, including Antarctica, where researchers are searching for microbes with useful properties for manufacturing.
Back here at home, take one more look around. There are biotechnology benefits everywhere you look. And even as you are reading this, scientists around the globe are imagining even more solutions, big and small, for the challenging world in which you live.
Skip to main content. Biotechnology Solutions for Everyday Life. Share Print. Improving Everyday Life Sometimes, biotechnology has the biggest impact in places you never notice. Safe and Healthier Foods As obesity rates climb to epidemic levels, biotechnology is helping to create a new generation of healthier oils from soybeans, canola and sunflowers. Cleaner Manufacturing and Environmental Challenges After more than two decades of success in health care and food production, scientists are now looking for ways to use biotechnology to make manufacturing of common products - like plastic and fuel - cleaner, more efficient and more sustainable through the use of renewable resources.
Food Production In , the year anniversary of commercialized biotech crops, the one-billionth biotech acre was planted. Biodefense and Public Safety Military units and disaster responders face new and dangerous threats from biological and chemical agents. What's Next? Entire new fields, such as personalized medicine , owe their existence to DNA sequencing technology.
Risks : Simply reading DNA is not harmful, but it is foundational for all of modern biotechnology. As the saying goes, knowledge is power, and the misuse of DNA information could have dire consequences. Finally, DNA testing opens the door to sticky ethical questions, such as whether to carry to term a pregnancy after the fetus is found to have a genetic mutation. Recombinant DNA tools allow researchers to choose a protein they think may be important for health or industry, and then remove that protein from its original context.
Modern biomedical research, many best-selling drugs , most of the clothes you wear , and many of the foods you eat rely on rDNA biotechnology. Benefits: Simply put, our world has been reshaped by rDNA. An increasing number of vaccines and drugs are the direct products of rDNA. For example, nearly all insulin used in treating diabetes today is produced recombinantly. Additionally, cheese lovers may be interested to know that rDNA provides ingredients for a majority of hard cheeses produced in the West.
Many important crops have been genetically modified to produce higher yields, withstand environmental stress, or grow without pesticides. Risks : The inventors of rDNA themselves warned the public and their colleagues about the dangers of this technology. For example, they feared that rDNA derived from drug-resistant bacteria could escape from the lab, threatening the public with infectious superbugs.
And recombinant viruses, useful for introducing genes into cells in a petri dish, might instead infect the human researchers. Some of the initial fears were allayed when scientists realized that genetic modification is much trickier than initially thought, and once the realistic threats were identified — like recombinant viruses or the handling of deadly toxins — safety and regulatory measures were put in place.
Still, there are concerns that rogue scientists or bioterrorists could produce weapons with rDNA. For instance, it took researchers just 3 years to make poliovirus from scratch in , and today the same could be accomplished in a matter of weeks.
Recent flu epidemics have killed over , , and the malicious release of an engineered virus could be much deadlier — especially if preventative measures, such as vaccine stockpiles, are not in place.
Synthesizing DNA has the advantage of offering total researcher control over the final product. With many of the mysteries of DNA still unsolved, some scientists believe the only way to truly understand the genome is to make one from its basic building blocks. Building DNA from scratch has traditionally been too expensive and inefficient to be very practical, but in , researchers did just that , completely synthesizing the genome of a bacteria and injecting it into a living cell.
Since then, scientists have made bigger and bigger genomes, and recently, the GP-Write project launched with the intention of tackling perhaps the ultimate goal: chemically fabricating an entire human genome.
Meeting this goal — and within a 10 year timeline — will require new technology and an explosion in manufacturing capacity. Benefits: Plummeting costs and technical advances have made the goal of total genome synthesis seem much more immediate. Scientists hope these advances, and the insights they enable, will ultimately make it easier to make custom cells to serve as medicines or even bomb-sniffing plants.
Fantastical applications of DNA synthesis include human cells that are immune to all viruses or DNA-based data storage. One company hopes to edit pig cells using DNA synthesis technology so that their organs can be transplanted into humans.
And DNA is an efficient option for storing data, as researchers recently demonstrated when they stored a movie file in the genome of a cell. Risks : DNA synthesis has sparked significant controversy and ethical concerns. For example, when the GP-Write project was announced , some criticized the organizers for the troubling possibilities that synthesizing genomes could evoke, likening it to playing God.
Additionally, cheap DNA synthesis could one day democratize the ability to make bioweapons or other nuisances, as one virologist demonstrated when he made the horsepox virus related to the virus that causes smallpox with DNA he ordered over the Internet.
It should be noted, however, that the other ingredients needed to make the horsepox virus are specialized equipment and deep technical expertise. Many diseases have a basis in our DNA, and until recently, doctors had very few tools to address the root causes. A note on terminology — CRISPR is a bacterial immune system, while Cas9 is one protein component of that system, but both terms are often used to refer to the protein.
It operates in cells like a DNA scissor, opening slots in the genome where scientists can insert their own sequence. Benefits: Genome editing may be the key to solving currently intractable genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis, which is caused by a single genetic defect. Just recently, an FDA panel recommended a gene therapy for cancer, which showed dramatic responses for patients who had exhausted every other treatment. Genome editing tools are also used to make lab models of diseases, cells that store memories , and tools that can detect epidemic viruses like Zika or Ebola.
And as described above, if a gene drive, which uses Cas9, is deployed effectively, we could eliminate diseases such as malaria, which kills nearly half a million people each year. Risks : Cas9 has generated nearly as much controversy as it has excitement, because genome editing carries both safety issues and ethical risks. Genome editing in reproductive cells, such as sperm or eggs, could result in heritable genetic changes, meaning dangerous mutations could be passed down to future generations.
Similarly, a gene drive , despite possibly minimizing the spread of certain diseases, has the potential to create great harm since it is intended to kill or modify an entire species. A successful gene drive could have unintended ecological impacts, be used with malicious intent, or mutate in unexpected ways.
The organizations above all work on biotechnology issues, though many cover other topics as well. This list is undoubtedly incomplete; please contact us to suggest additions or corrections. Special thanks to Jeff Bessen for his help researching and writing this page.
This allows scientists to alter DNA and modify gene functions, often called genetic engineering. There are many applications, like correcting genetic defects, treating diseases, preventing the spread of diseases, improving crops, and more. But the science of altering genomes has many ethical concerns surrounding it. From the ability to mutate genes and the unknowns surrounding gene mutation, CRISPR is a controversial area of biomedical science. Of course, pharmaceutical companies and other scientific organizations that develop and utilize CRISPR technology are trying to downplay the concerns and issues, so the reality of the benefits and damage of the technology is somewhat unknown.
New science may have the ability to heal people with a single touch. Sound too good to be true? Tissue nanotransfection works by injecting genetic code into skin cells, which turns those skin cells into the other types of cells required for treating diseases.
In some lab tests, one touch of TNT completely repaired the injured legs of mice over a period of a few weeks by turning skin cells into vascular cells. And reportedly, this biotech can work on other types of tissue besides skin.
The potential for this type of gene therapy is huge, from helping car crash victims to active duty soldiers. Medical biotechnology has made this advancement possible, and the continued research and testing will only help improve this tech and adopt it across hospitals and medical centers. That host organism will produce new genetic combinations for medicine, agriculture, and industry. There are many examples of recombinant DNA technology being utilized, from biopharmaceuticals and diagnostics to energy applications like biofuel to agricultural biotechnology with modified fruits and veggies.
The genetically modified products are able to perform better than the regular medicine or produce. Recombinant agriculture is able to be more pest resistant or weather resistant; recombinant medicine like insulin is able to better work with bodies, etc. Because of the many benefits that recombinant DNA holds for a variety of products, researchers are optimistic about the future it has within biosciences and in other industries as well.
Genetic and ancestry kits are popular these days, and they are beneficial for more than just helping people understand their genetics and heritage. New studies are showing that saliva kits are able to test for things like breast cancer by looking at gene mutations.
Certain races are also more likely to inherit certain mutations or human diseases, and knowing what races make up your genetic material can help you be prepared. Statistics show that cervical cancer kills , women annually, which is why a vaccine for HPV is so important.
The good news is there are now two vaccines on the market—Cervarix and Gardasil—that have been approved by the U. Food and Drug Administration for use in women from ages 9 to Biotechnology plays a big part in supporting stem cell research, which supports the exploration of growing stem cells in a lab setting or in vitro. This could help in situations where patients may be suffering from a disease or disorder where implanting stem cells could help restore their vitality and give them a new lease on life.
How does it work? Because stem cells can repeatedly divide and transform into other types of body cells, biotechnologists can learn how to work with their unique profiles to encourage growth of specific types of cells.
While there are great advancements and positives to medical biotechnology, anything this fast-growing and powerful is bound to come with some concerns and issues.
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