This document provides an overview of biotechnology, including its definition, history, techniques, and applications. It discusses how biotechnology began with ancient practices like bread baking, winemaking, and animal/plant breeding. Modern biotechnology focuses on changing microorganisms, plants, and animals at the DNA level and uses techniques like genetic mapping, tissue culture, cloning, and genetic engineering. It applies these techniques in agriculture, medicine, and other fields to develop products like crops with new traits, pharmaceuticals produced in plants/animals, and gene therapies. Overall, the document outlines how biotechnology unlocks the secrets of life to make improvements through the application of biological knowledge.

1. Biotechnology
Unlocking the secrets of life
Inter-descriptions and its
applications in agriculture,
medicine, and research.
By
Dr. Muhammad Shafiq

2. What is Biotechnology?
 Definition:
The use of living organisms to
make or improve a product
– Bio (life)
– technology (the application
of knowledge for practical
use

3. Where did it begin?
 Ancient bread baking
 Wine brewing
 Cheese making
 Yogurt fermentation
 Animal and plant breeding

4. Biotechnology Today
 Focuses on how to change
microorganisms, plants and
animals
 Scientist isolated and made
changes to DNA in the early 1970’s
– DNA carries the “Blueprint”
– Genes are units of DNA

5. 1.2 The interdisciplinary nature of biotechnology

6. Techniques
Biotechnology
Gene Mapping
Tissue Culture
Biofermentation
Gene Mapping
Cloning
Gene Transfer

7. Genetic Engineering
 Manipulation of genes is called
genetic engineering or
recombinant DNA technology
 Removes gene(s) from one
organism and either:
– Transfers them to another
– Puts them back in the original with a
different combination
 Transgenic

8. Techniques
 Genetic Mapping
– Locating specific genes within heredity
material
 Tissue Culture
– Modified cells can grow into whole plants
 Biofermentation
– Mass production of modified
microorganisms
 Cloning
– Reproducing genetically identical animals

9. Biotechnology in Agriculture
(Plants)
 Crops
– Built in insect and herbicide resistance
– Built in tolerance to environmental
conditions
– Improved color and quality
 Pharmaceuticals
– Plants that produce edible vaccines
 Food
– Improved taste and nutrition
– Improved handling qualities

10. Biotechnology in Agriculture
(Plants)
 Industrial
– plants that produce plastics, fuels,
and other products
– plants for environmental cleanup
 Other
– pesticides made from naturally-
occurring microorganisms and insects

11. Biotechnology in Agriculture
(Animals)
 Breeding
 Plant breeding to improve resistance to pests, diseases,
drought and salt conditions
 Mass propagation of plant clones Bioinsecticide
development modification of plants to improve
nutritional and processing characteristics
 Exact copies of desired stock
– Increased yields
 Health
– Microorganisms introduced into feed for beneficial
purposes
– Diagnostics for disease and pregnancy detection
– Animals engineered to to produce organs suitable for
transplantation into humans

12. Biotechnology in Agriculture
(Animals)
 Food
– Production of bakers' yeast, cheese, yogurt and fermented
foods such as vinegar and soy sauce
– Brewing and wine making
– Production of flavors and coloring agents
 Pharmaceuticals
– Animals engineered to produce human proteins for drugs,
including insulin and vaccines
– Development of novel therapeutic molecules for medical
treatments
 Diagnostics
 Drug delivery systems
 Tissue engineering of replacement organs
 Gene therapy

13. Medicine
 Some new
developments delve
into the hereditary
material of humans
known as gene therapy

14. Medicine
 Therapeutant - product
used to maintain health or
prevent disease
 Biopharmaceuticals – drug
or vaccine developed
through biotechnology
 Called designer drugs

15. Medicine
 Biopharming –
production of
pharmaceuticals in
cultured organisms
 Combination of the
agriculture and
pharmaceutical industries

16. Medicine
 Certain blood – derived
products needed in
human medicine can
be produced in the
milk of goats

17. Biotechnology
 Helps meet human needs
 Food, clothing and
shelter
 Plants and animals are
used in manufacturing
food, clothing and
materials for shelter

18. Biotechnology
 Used to make products
more useful or
desirable
 Ex: conversion of milk
into cheese or yogurt

19. Efficiency
 Must keep the cost of
improving products as
low as possible
 Biotech results in
greater efficiency

20. Efficiency
 Inoculating legume seeds
with bacteria that allow
the plant to pull nitrogen
out of the air and put it
into the soil
 Saves the producer the
cost of applying N
fertilizer

21. Efficiency
 Results in trees that
grow faster and
produce wood that is
more desirable

22. Greater
Production
 Increases yields
 bST use in cows to
produce more milk
 Higher crop yields from
drought, disease & insect
resistant crops

23. Health Promoting
Foods
 Food with unique traits
 Some contain
therapeutants
 Some designed with
nutrient enrichment

24. Safety
 Consumers want foods to
provide needed nutrients
and in some cases,
enhanced foods
 Do not want side effects
from those enhanced
foods

25. Easy preparation
 Flavr-Savr Tomato
 (also known as CGN-89564-
2; pronounced "flavor saver")
 Reached the market in early
1990’s
 Engineered to have a longer
shelf life

26. Synthetic biology
 Creating lifelike
characteristics through
the use of chemicals
 Based on creating
structures similar to
those found in living
organisms

27. Synthetic Biology
 Need for synthetic cells
lead to the development
of the vesicle
 Vesicle – tiny rounded
structure with cell like
traits

28. Vesicle
 Tiny structures similar to
soap bubbles were
created to serve as the
cell membrane
 Visible only with powerful
microscope

29. Vesicle
 Once the cell
membrane has been
successfully developed,
development of the
materials with the cell
is initiated.

30. Synthetic biology
 Is important because it
brings science closer to
creating life in the lab
 Cells and tissues may be
developed to treat
human injury and
disease

31. environmental biotechnology?
 Simple and traditional definition: use, in a
controlled manner, of microorganisms to
degrade wastes
 Solving environmental problems through
biotechnology; e.g. biosensor,
BioMicroElectronics and Nanotechnologies,
Biotreatments, etc.
 International Society for Environmental
Biotechnology, since 1992. Two streams: (1)
microbial biotechnology for environmental
improvement (sewage treatments and
bioremediation) and (2) chemical engineering
related to the environment. From waste
treatment to bioremediation.

32. Biological Dual-Use
Research
Learnodes.com/Judy Breck
“Biotechnology represents a ‘dual use’
dilemma in which the same
technologies can be used legitimately
for human betterment and misused for
bioterrorism.”
Biotechnology Research in an Age of Terrorism,
National Academy of Sciences, 2004
“…research that, based on current understanding, can be
reasonably anticipated to provide knowledge, products, or
technologies that could be directly misapplied by others to
pose a threat to public health, agriculture, plants, animals, the
environment, or materiel.”
National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity

33. Peaceful Use Weapons Use
Dual-Use
Bioweapons
States (Iraq vs Iran)
Terrorists
Biodefense
Public Health Offensive Military
Defends against
military use of
bioweapons
Develops
capabilities for
military use of
bioweapons
Diagnostics
Drugs
Vaccines
Antivirals
Research on the same
biotechnologies
AP/Wide World Photo/Department of Defense
A
suspected
mobile
biological
weapons
facility in
Iraq.
Canadian Institutes
of Health Research
U.S. Army Medical Research
Institute of Infectious Diseases

34. Peaceful Use Weapons Use
Dual-Use
Bioweapons
States (Iraq vs Iran)
Terrorists
Biodefense
Public Health Offensive Military
Diagnostics
Drugs
Vaccines
Antivirals
Research on the same
biotechnologies
AP/Wide World Photo/Department of Defense
A
suspected
mobile
biological
weapons
facility in
Iraq.
Canadian Institutes
of Health Research
U.S. Army Medical Research
Institute of Infectious Diseases

35. Misuse of biotechnology
► 2001: Letters containing
anthrax spores were sent to
politicians, news agencies,
and newspapers.
► The letters were sent over
the course of several weeks.
► Five people died and 17 were
infected.
► Together with the 9/11
attacks, fear of terrorists
using biological weapons led
to a massive buildup of the
biodefense industry