There are many advantages of using biotechnology for the environment. One of the advantages is bioremediation. Bioremediation is a technique where naturally occurring microorganisms are used to detoxify pollutants, normally appears as contaminants of soils, sediments or water which can affect human health. Microorganisms are widely used to get rid of all toxic chemicals and other organic matter from the discharged wastes before they are being introduced into the environment. There are also genetically modified microorganisms made to eliminate materials that are difficult to degrade. Biological enzymes are used to substitute the chemical catalysts so that this technique can be maintained to be environmental-friendly. Biotechnology is a desirable alternative to reduce the energy and chemicals required for this process. Plus, the wastes production also can be decreased.

The first example of pollution that can be treated by biotechnology is water pollution such as wastewater and effluents. As we know, the world is having rapid industrialization and urbanization which leads to the production of large quantities of waste water. The water bodies are being contaminated by biological, organic and inorganic pollutants. This phenomenon causes water scarcity as the water become unsafe for human consumption. Therefore, methods such as aerobic, anaerobic and physico-chemical processes are used where the materials and microbes are kept in suspension. The use of microbe is important to speed up the process of purifying the water.

The second example of pollution that can be treated by biotechnology is soil pollution. Nowadays, the use of fertilizers and other agricultural chemicals has been widely applied to soils which can cause soil pollution. However, the presence of toxic compounds, chemical salts, radioactive materials and disease-causing agents cause bad effects towards plants that grow on the contaminated soil. That is why biotechnology comes out with many species of fungi that can be used in soil bioremediation. The examples of fungi are Lipomyces sp., Rhodotorula sp., and Candida sp. Soil bioremediation is a safe, reliable, cost-effective, and of course environmental-friendly method. Bio-pesticides and bio-herbicides also have been introduced to improve soil moisture content and reduce erosion, but at the same time limiting the emission of carbon dioxide which can save the environment.

The third pollution is air pollution. Human activities that result to air pollution are such as burning fossil fuels in order to get the natural gas, coal and oil, industrial processes and also motor vehicles. If the fuels are burned incompletely, volatile organic chemicals also will enter the air. All these gases will affect human health especially towards the skin, cardiovascular and respiratory system. Nowadays, advanced technology has been developed to purify these biological waste gases using bioreactors which include bio filters, bio trickling filters, bio scrubbers and membrane bioreactors. The air that contains these volatile compounds will be passed through bioreactors and their gas phase will be transformed into liquid phase. Later, microbes will grow in the liquid phase to remove those harmful compounds from the air. After that, direct oxidation is being done by bacteria such as Nocardia sp. and Xanthomonas sp.

            Food biotech is the application where scientist improves the production of plants, animals and microorganism to produce high quality, quantity and safety of food. In example, plant biotech can produce more products with less land, reducing the use of pesticides, reducing the amount of crops lost to pests and disease. 

            The benefit of food biotech is the desirable traits can be selected from the plant and introduced to another in order to produce the desire plants such as pest resistant and increase nutritional value of food. This genetic engineering technique is better than conventional breeding that is time consuming and the result is not guaranteed. 

            Next, the usage of chemical pesticide can be reduced when using plant biotech because it is pest and disease resistant. The gene encode for pesticide is inserted into the plant, thus, the plant can produced its own pesticide to eliminate the pest. Hence, the environment can be conserved and protected from chemical pesticide. 

            The concerns regarding genetic engineering also increase including human health concerns and environmental issues. The concern to human health is whether the genetic modified food has any threat to human health since the antibiotic resistance gene is introduced into certain plant. The presence of antibiotic resistance is considered to affect human therapeutic treatment. 

            In conclusion, biotechnology has higher potential to improve and increase food production although many concerns of genetic engineering arose. In the future, scientist might be able to develop acceptable public policies to monitor, control, and minimize potential risks of biotechnology and any side effects on public health and environment. 

 

The fact that living organisms have evolved such an enormous spectrum of biological capabilities, it is possible to obtain a wide variety of substances that may be useful to man as food, medicines and fuels. Over the years, the experts have increasingly applied the method of physics, chemistry and mathematics in order to gain precise knowledge at the molecular level of how the living cells make these substances. By combining the methods of engineering and science, what has emerged is the concept of biotechnology which combined all the disciplines. 

The world of biopharmaceuticals deals with pharmaceuticals or drugs that are used as the medicines. It mainly involved with the synthesis of medical drugs that can be nucleic acid and proteins, including antibodies that help to fight infection. Instead of using chemicals, these drugs are derived from microorganisms which synthesize them naturally. The products synthesized are cheaper and safer compared to those chemically made. Biosynthetic human insulin was the first substance that was approved for therapeutic use. It was made via recombinant DNA technology. It replaced the pig insulin that was earlier used and revolutionized the industry with its success. Gene therapy is another example of the impact of biotechnology to the society. Gene therapy is a process where it deals with the diagnosis and the treatment of genetic diseases and some other diseases like cancer. The treatments in gene therapy involve the manipulating and correcting of the defecting genes. Genes are inserted, deleted or modified as the treatment requires. This technology is still new but it has great potential in the world of medicine. 

Example of the plant are genetically modified (GM) soybean, GM maize, rice and sugar beet. All of these changes has been making an impact to the society. Rice, maize, and wheat are the world’s most important crops. It is the main sources of food. GM rice have higher tolerance towards herbicide. In Europe, the GM maize has been planted. The maize can produces substances that helps it to defend itself against a persistent pest known as the European corn borer. These give advantages to farmers who grow GM maize. As a result, there is an increase in maize yield. It save the cost of using chemical or biological pest control method. Therefore, the farmer can sell it much cheaper to the consumer. Furthermore, the production of the golden rice which have high content of vitamin A and iron has been created and provided free of cost to small-scale farmers in developing countries. Besides, the world’s first glow in the dark plant has been engineered. It is known as The Starlight Avatar plant. The plant is derived from the ornamental Nicotiana Alata plant family.  The creation of this plant has attracted society from the ornamental plant market. In the future, the glow plant may replace the usage of the streetlight in the highways as natural light does not need electricity and it can also be placed at home as decoration and replace the common lighting.  

In conclusion, genetically engineered plant not only beneficial but it also giving new ideas to the market as new products can be generated from the engineered plant. Now, the society will have more choices as more nutritious food can be provided to the society.  

Other than tissue culture technique, cloning plants also help to reduce the work necessary for harvesting. This is because when individual plants show more uniform characteristics, grow at the same speed and ripen at the same time, harvesting will be less laborious. The reduction in the workload is not only an objective in highly industrialized countries, it can also be very important for small farmers in developing countries. 

Tissue engineering, the ability to grow cells into whole tissue, able to change the way therapies are delivered and medicine is practiced. As such, some of the advances that biotechnology contributes to the medical field including biochip that can measure glucose concentrations in human saliva. This technique could eliminate the need for diabetics to draw blood to check their glucose levels. Recent technology by Associate Professor Anubhav Tripathi developed a biochip that enables fast, portable flu strain detection. Nowadays, numerous methods of imaging allow for technicians and physicians to examine a patient’s anatomy without needing invasive procedures to form a diagnosis.

The impact of biotechnology into medical advances is no doubt a beneficial innovation that improved quality of life. Technology not only brings convenience to data coordination and management, it also increases the accuracy of diagnosis. Other than that, the development of better instruments and more advanced biotechnology have allowed surgeons to perform procedures in minimally invasive ways that just wasn’t possible a few years ago. All these have pushed healthcare and medical to another level which brings advancements and advantages to the society.

By year 2050, there will be 9.5 billion people living on this planet and the stability, production and distribution of food products should be maintained to overcome food scarcity problem. Thus, to conserve forest, habitat and biodiversity, GM crops have been introduced to facilitate the production and distribution of food products. The significant environmental benefits of GM crops is the dramatic reduction in pesticide use as in the USA, adoption of GM crops resulted in pesticide use reduction at 46.4 million pound in 2003.

 However, there are some of potential risks that should be taken into consideration for instance is has been proved that GM crops has direct effect on non-target organism. In May 1999, it was reported that pollen of Bacillus thuriengienesis insect resistance corn has negative impact on Monarch butterfly larval. Beside, another concern of over use of Bt crops is it will lead to development of insect resistance to Bt. Lastly, to reduce the potential risk regarding the GM crops, post approval monitoring and good agricultural system play important role to ensure the GM crops continue to be safe after their release.

References

Scragg, A. H. (1999). Environmental biotechnology (Vol. 249). Essex: Longman.

GM Crops and the Environment. (2017). Retrieved May 12, 2017, from International Service for the Acquisition for Agri-Biotech Applications: http://www.isaaa.org/resources/publications/pocketk/4/

Biotechnology field is considered one of the fastest moving of science today. It’s covered a wide area of application including medicine, bio-pharmacy, agriculture and others via combination knowledge between biology and technology. As a result, substantial improvements in human and health care as well as the production of transgenic plants and animals have occurred continuously in coming years. Regarding to medical field, biotechnology is able to interpret genetic makeup of species, genetic basis of heritable diseases as well as invention of technology to construct and fix mutant genes. Nowadays, biotechnology provides method to directly treat on diseases such as gene therapy and enzyme therapy or produces antibiotic such as penicillin to defend from bacteria or virus attack. 

For instance, in the era of science and technology, advancement of biotechnology has discovered several high-throughput tools to make it possible in diagnosis of infectious diseases no matter it is occurred from pathogen transmission or inherit. Such example including Enzymes linked Immuno-sorbant Assay (ELISA), PCR based technique and etc. Generally, when the diagnosis test have been constructed, researchers are then proceed to the treatment of the disease. One of the example of modern biotechnology approach, enzyme therapy is now widely applied as pharmaceutical product. This concept is basically explained on the unique enzymes characteristic like higher affinity and specifcity in binding to the targeted mutant protein. Deficiency or non-functioning of the protein in the body which result from the inactivation of virus will leads to several diseases to happen. For example, in 1990, Adagen®, form of bovine adenosine deaminase (ADA) performed to treated with polyethylene glycol (PEG) was the first found successful enzyme therapy for inherited disease such as severe combined immunodeficiency disease (SCID).  This was a kind of disease that produced during the extremely serious insufficient of ADA protein. The enzyme ADA was function by cleaving the excess adenosine present in blood circulation of patients and this results in reducing toxicity to the immune system of the elevated adenosine levels. With the first successful application of enzyme therapy, the particular approach was later expanded to others relevant diseases. In short, the development of biotechnology over past ten years have allowed pharmaceutical industrial to produce safer, guarantee medicine with high efficiency treat on both rare and common diseases. 

Applications of biotechnology to animal production centre on four fields such as reproduction,selection and breeding , animal health , feeding and nutrition and growth and production.

In the field of reproduction, new biotechniques such as embryo transfers, in vitro fertilization, cloning and sex determination of embryos have been developed for different types of livestock; for example, cattle. This is of considerable interest for breeding programmes in developing countries since importing frozen embryos can be less costly than importing live animals.

Animal health, the second field, can be improved with new biotechnology methods of diagnosis, prevention and control of animal diseases. Diagnostic tests based on the use of monoclonal antibodies and new vaccines against viral and bacterial diseases are also particularly relevant for developing countries.

Biotechnology research in the third field of animal nutrition concentrates on improvements in the enzymatic treatment of feed; the addition of inoculant to ensilaged fodder for better and faster conversion; and decreasing the anti-nutritional factors in certain plants, such as legumes, which are used as feed. In developing countries, such techniques might eventually increase the potential range of crops used to feed larger herds of livestock.

Experiments with hormones to improve milk and meat production (such as bovine somatotropin and recombinant porcine somatotropin) are the subject of much debate in industrialized countries because of their possible negative effects on animals and farm structures. In developing countries, however, specific needs for increases in productivity can be an overriding consideration which may lead to earlier large-scale adoption of this technology than in many industrialized countries. This field represents the fourth area of biotechnology application.

Furthermore, biotechnology has been further advancing to make more sophisticated medicines and vaccines that able to treat and prevent diseases. The best part is that it can be rapidly produce. Messenger therapeutics is one of the technologies that able to naturally stimulate the body to produce therapeutic proteins. One more creation is Immunotherapies which increase or restore the ability of the immune system to fight diseases by targeting specific cells.

References

Sang, S. Y. (2013). How could biotechnology improve your life?. Retrieved from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2013/02/how-could-biotechnology-improve-your-life/

Monsanto. (n.d). Benefits of Biotechnology. Retrieved from http://www.monsanto.com/products/pages/benefits-of-plant-biotechnology.aspx

 

A number of human and animal diseases have found cure and prevention, all thanks to biotechnology. There are vaccines which help in preventing as well as lowering the impact of illnesses, which is otherwise very difficult to control. Plants and animals are able to yield better fruits and dairy products with the help of biotechnology. Highly reliable, consistent and rapid enzymes have been created with the help of biotechnology. These enzymes play a major role in food processing as well as prevention. 

However, as we can see, advancement in biotechnology has provided us with a lot of benefits. Biotechnology has applications in four major industrial areas, including health care (medical), crop production and agriculture, non-food or industrial uses of crops and other products (e.g.  biodegradable plastic, vegetable oil, biofuels) and also environmental uses. It is proven that the benefits of biotech medicines, crops and resource conservation clearly have a positive impact on society as a whole. Consumers with special needs have much to gain from the world of biotechnology. As we already know, malnutrition in the world has reached epidemic proportions. According to the Gordon Conway, president of the Rockefeller Foundation, more than 800 million people are chronically malnourished. Through a variety of products, biotechnology is addressing these needs on a global level. Foods with higher protein levels, minerals and vitamins, and lower in saturated fats are slowly making their way from the lab to the marketplace.

In this modern era, advancement of biotechnology can also lead to a better study of pharmacogenetics. Thus, more potential benefits can be received by the society such as more powerful medicine and vaccines can be created. Besides, more accurate methods of determining dosage can also be developed by scientist or researcher in order to give a better treatment to the patients.  Biotechnology has, for example, made it possible to detect, and in some cases treat, diseases such as sickle-cell anemia, Tay-Sachs disease, diabetes, and cystic fibrosis. 

 

One of the impact of biotechnology is by increasing the crops yield. Crop yield is depending on the external factor (environmental factors) and internal factor (genetic factor). thus, by the aid of biotechnology, we able to optimize the crop to have better yield and able to provide sufficient food. For examples, biotechnology able to produce a high resistance crops toward pest, harsh environment or by manipulate the physical and chemical traits that is important to have a better yield. Other than that, biotechnology also able to improve the nutritional value of food. Having a large amount of food is useless if the nutritional value does not enough to fulfill the human dietary needs. Using biotechnology, we are able to identify, locate and transfer the gene that are encoded crucial protein to be inserted in the particular food to increase it nutritional value. For examples, rice that enriched with vitamin A. This is important to the poor country that have insufficient food. This will provide the food that have high quality, nutritional value. In the other hand, the usage of biotechnology in food still need a further research to clarify the longterm effect toward human. 

 

Plant has been one the most crucial natural sources in human’s lives as food sources, shelter, and to balance the ecosystem. For over 10,000 years biotechnology has developed so many applications including pesticide-resistant crops. This was first done in 1998 by introducing new traits into the wild type in order to produce a better plant in terms of self-resistant towards pathogen, has a longer shelf life, and increased its flavor and nutrition.

 

As the year passed by, this field aims to benefit society by providing more reliable food in order to improve human’s quality of life. Genetically modified (GM) crops for an example, has contributed towards the society from the economic, environmental, and social perspective. The farmers that cultivated GM crops have shown an increment in their crop yield and production. This is supported by the crops that are made more tolerant to stress such as weeds, herbicides, weather, and pathogens, thus the number of yield loss may be avoided. Also, the production costs including manpower and gas may be conserved when cultivating GM plant since the technology made it possible to convert annual crops into perennials. 

 

The advancement of agrobiotechnology helps to reduce the amount of land required for agricultural activities. Transgenic plant that has herbicide tolerant gene enable more farmers to adopt conservation tillage because weeds can be effectively controlled with a minimal cost without the need to turning over the soil compared to conventional cropping system. Concomitantly, soil erosion may be reduced.

 

In some developed countries such as United States, GM food or GM-based products are a concerning problem since there is a lack of information of these products, which eventually leads to false beliefs; harmful to health and loss of money. Hence, more programs or campaigns need to be held in order to expose public with the potential of this GMO technology since it is a chance to improve the lives of millions around the world. 

Taste, yield, shelf life and nutritive values of the food can be enhanced through modern biotechnology. Apart from that, it is also useful in food processing such as fermentation and enzyme involving the process. According to Adenle (2011), an income of the poor farmer can be raised because the product from the modern biotechnology is commercially reasonable due to it can improve agriculture as well as food industry. 

There are several roles of food biotechnology in food processing. For example is fermentation. Breweries are one of the examples of the product that synthesized through the fermentation process. At the commercial level, different yeast strains are used to make breweries. Through genetic engineering, it is enabled us to yield light wine. Yeast is the genetic modified that produced from the foreign gene encoding glucoamylase. During the process of fermentation, glucoamylase will be expressed from yeast and it will convert starch to glucose (Lawrence, 1988). Wine synthesis is used yeast strain are capable of malolactic fermentation. There are two steps involved in wine synthesis which is primary and secondary fermentation. Primary fermentation cause glucose is converted to alcohol by using yeast while secondary fermentation yields lactic acid because of the uses of bacterial. As a result, the level of acidity is rise. However, this problem can be overcome through the insertion of malolactic genes derived from the Lactobacillus delbrueckiii in industrial yeast strain. This gene will result in lower malate conversion thus lowering acidity level of wine (Williams et al., 1984; Snow, 1985).

Enzyme is another example in food industries. The enzyme is utilized in processing and production of food item specifically produced at an industrial level. The enzyme consists of protease and carbohydrate. Genes derived from the enzyme have been cloned to get higher production in less time period.

Tomato is one of the many juicy fruits possess short shelf life and it is used entire world. Tomato at the mature green stage is suitable for shipped. After picking, ethylene is subjected to tomato for ripening but it must be at suitable temperature. Early ripening is caused by higher temperature while the taste of the fruit is destroyed through lower temperature. This problem has been overcome by one of the Californian Company named Calgene. 

They genetically engineered tomato by inserting enzyme called polygalacturonase and developed a tomato named Flavr Savr tomato. This enzyme function as breaks down pectin causing ripening and softening. Scientists genetically modified tomatoes in order to reduce an amount of this enzyme. According to Adenle (2011), for this purpose, they used antisense RNA. Low amount of this enzyme will cause lower breakdown of cell wall and pectin. Thus, firmer tomatoes are yields. These Flavr Savr tomatoes have a longer shelf life thus it is suitable for shipping even tough is take a long period of time.    

References

Adenle, A. A. (2011). Response to issues on GM agriculture in Africa: Are transgenic crops safe?. BMC research notes, 4(1), 388.

Lawrence, R. H. (1988). New applications of biotechnology in the food industry. Biotechnology and the food supply, 19-45.

Morin, X. K. (2008). Genetically modified food from crops: progress, pawns, and possibilities. Analytical and bioanalytical chemistry, 392(3), 333-340.

Snow, R. (1985). Genetic engineering of a yeast strain for malolactic fermentation of wine. Food technology (USA).

Williams, S. A., Hodges, R. A., Strike, T. L., Snow, R., & Kunkee, R. E. (1984). Cloning the gene for the malolactic fermentation of wine from Lactobacillus delbrueckii in Escherichia coli and yeasts. Applied and environmental microbiology, 47(2), 288-293.

Biotechnology approach to produce medicines from natural resources is by the introduction of enzymes. Enzymes typically catalyze the conversion of specific substrate to produce natural products which refer to chemical substances found in nature that have distinctive pharmacological effects. The approach of biotechnology in pharmacological field aids in manufacturing drugs more easily and cheaply as they can be produced in larger quantities from existing sources. 

                Biotechnology is undeniably changing the way humans live and taking quality to another standard. Among the major areas that had been discovered and improved by biotechnology is the medicine sector. The use of biotechnology in the medicine sector can be majorly divided into biopharmaceuticals, gene therapy, pharmacogenomics and genetic testing. These applications continue to find promising breakthrough in the medicinal field. 

                Biopharmaceutical deals with pharmaceuticals or drugs that are used as medicine. It is basically a medical drug produced using the art of biotechnology. These medical drugs can be protein (antibodies) or nucleic acid (DNA or RNA) derived from microorganism that synthesizes them naturally, and there is no chemical involved in the synthesizing process. Hence, this biopharmaceutical is not only cheap, but it is also proven to be safer than the medical drug that had been produced chemically. 

                Gene therapy is a treatment involving manipulating genes, as well as repairing defected genes. With the power of gene therapy, scientists now have a tool that enables them to alter a patient’s DNA.  Eventhough this technology is still new and has not yet gain a 100% trust from the society, but it has a great potential in opening the door to a whole new method of treatment that can cure multiple kind of diseases. 

                Pharmacogenomics is defined as how the genetic inheritance possessed by an individual influenced the body response towards a certain medicine. The application of biotechnology in pharmacogenomics has brought great benefits to human beings such as, the ability to develop custom medications, and better and safer vaccination. 

                Genetic testing was applied to study the family tree in order to determine the genetic diseases, sex, carrier screening, newborn screening and prenatal diagnostic screening. 

                

                

Generally the term of Biotechnology is defined as the exploitation of biological processes for industrial or other purposes that may be advantageous to the society at a large. These days with the evolution of biotechnology, more precise and recently developed techniques of genetic modification have been manipulated to introduce various beneficial traits particularly in plant. 

The products from agricultural biotechnology may be beneficial to the farmers and consumers. Biotechnology helps farmers in increasing the plant’s productivity and reducing the production cost by improving the plant’s resistance toward insects, viruses and diseases so, less pesticide are needed.  The increase in crop’s tolerance to drought, heat and other environmental stress also resulted in increased productivity. The consumers are also able to consume better quality of crops with increased nutritional value. Additionally, genetically modified fruits and vegetables are capable of retaining their flavor and texture longer thus increases the product’s shelf life.

References:
A. (n.d.). Products. Retrieved March 14, 2017, from http://www.monsanto.com/products/pages/benefits-of-plant-biotechnology.aspx

Benefits of Biotechnology. (n.d.). Retrieved March 14, 2017, from http://ccr.ucdavis.edu/biot/benefit_new.html

One of the impacts from this study is the contribution in the advancement of cancer research. Researchers are able to study in details on the mechanism that leads to the development of tumour and cancerous cells. For example, the technology of DNA microarray is used to distinguish the differences in the gene expression levels of cancer cell and normal cells by measuring the mRNA in both types of cells. Microarray is a tool that has the ability to monitor genome in wide expression levels of genes in a given organism. It is also able to analyse large data sets of information in the functional genomics. The analysis of gene expression is achieved by monitoring the expression levels of thousands of genes simultaneously under this technology.  

This technology allows the comparison of gene expression levels between the normal cell and cancer cell. Hence, researchers are able to look which genes are ‘on’ and ‘off’ in cancer cell and compared in healthy cell. Therefore, cure for this disease may be found in nearest time if there is a proper study and high throughput technologies being developed. 

One of the application of environmental biotechnology is biodegradation of organic matter especially in wastewater. The organic matter converts into nutrient to be utilized by other organism. The organic matter can be degraded naturally without harming the environment. The biodegradation technique is also useful to degrade toxic products.

Other major application of biotechnology on environment involving the pollution of the water whether in the river or in the ocean. Marine biology is a branch of study concerning on pollution of the ocean especially the oil spill in the water. The latest discovery is on aerobic decomposition of hydrocarbon. 
In conclusion, the uses of biotechnology is very beneficial in creating better environment by preventing, reducing and treating the environment quality. 

In medical biotechnology, the development has since increases majorly in the area of pharmaceutical drug discovery and production, pharmacogenomics and genetic screening. This development enable better treatment based of an individual need as it directly treat the individual’s genetic makeup. Pharmacogenomics for instance, analyse how genetic makeup affects an individual response to drug. Thus, personalized medicine can be develop and ensuring maximum efficiency with minimal adverse effects for a patient. 

Biotechnology often processes at molecular level to explore and manipulate life structure. The regulation of expression of specific genes gives us a better understanding of cancer development and immunopathologic diseases (Borden, 1991). This new knowledge and advancement result in the production of therapeutic molecules for cancer and infectious diseases.

As a conclusion, the finding assist with biotechnology will continuously evolve in the future. However, the implications or the impact on this advancement will not only create positive vibe and benefit only, but will also create debate mainly regarding appropriate use such as ethical value.

Borden, E. C. (1991). Biotechnology: Its Impact on Medicine and Oncology. Ann Acad Med Singapore.

 

The positive impacts of food biotechnology to society includes:

• Enhanced nutritional content and product quality such as the “golden rice”

• Aiding in growing more food on less land

• Help to prevent crop loss and loss of money

• Food security

• Benefits to the farmer by increasing their incomes

• Improve processing characteristics leads to reduce waste and lower food costs to the consumer

 

The negative impacts of food biotechnology to society includes:

• Human health concerns, whether or not new food products or genetically modified food pose any threat to human health

• Might cause allergy to babies and to those who previously had no history of that allergy

• Might cause loss to the traditional farmers

 

Biotechnology Innovation Organization. (2017). Biotechnology’s Impacts on Food Ingredients. Retrieved March, 16 2017, from https://www.bio.org/articles/biotechnologys-impact-food-ingredients

 

Food Insight. (2016). Fact Sheets: Benefits of Food Biotechnology. Retrieved March, 16 2017, from http://www.foodinsight.org/articles/fact-sheet-benefits-food-biotechnology

 

Habibi- Najafi, M. B. (2006). Food biotechnology and its impact on our food supply. Global Journal of Biotechnology and Biochemistry, 1(1), 22-27.

 

            Furthermore, Abah J. and Ishaq M. N. reported that one of the most significant environmental challenges in developing countries is how to meet current food supply with adequate amount in the population. Other than that, world hunger and food insecurity is a frequent problem in most parts of the developing world. Hence, in the future, advanced technologies have to be exploited in response to enable sufficient food supply. Improving yield of food production and nutritional quality of crops can be fulfilled by utilizing genetic engineering of biotechnology. GM crops will hopefully produce more yield on less land. This may increase the overall productivity and may offer developing countries a means to sustain themselves and reduce worldwide hunger. 

 

Reference.

Food Fortification Initiative. (n.d.). Retrieved 2017 from http://www.ffinetwork.org/about/faq/faq_nutrition.html

 

In biotechnology, pharmacogenomics and pharmacogenetics is the determination of how an individual response to drug by analysing the genome, RNA and protein through a series of high throughput approaches and the study of variability in drug responses regarding the hereditary factors respectively (Roses, 2001). Currently, drugs are designed as “one size fits all”, however, the drug may not suitable for everyone, and might cause some adverse effects on some individual. This is due to genes that responsible to code for drug metabolizing enzymes, receptors and transporters are variant (Surendiran et al., 2008). In pharmacogenetics clinical studies, patients are stratified based on their metabolizing capacity through pharmacogenetics tests (Surendiran et al., 2008). For instance, gene expressing profiling is demonstrated by using microarray in order to differential the distinct sub-sets of genes may expressed differentially in disease and healthy tissue (Roses, 2001). While in recent, single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) maps is used in order to create an SNP profile for patients that suffered from adverse events or who respond clinically to the drug efficacy (Roses, 2001).

With the aid of human genome project, it has been estimated that there will be around 8000 drug targets, out of which 2329 acts for antibodies while 794 acts for drug proteins (Surendiran et al., 2008). For many years, NIH-funded researchers had put efforts in studies of effect of genes on medication on a wide range of condition, including depression, asthma, cancer and heart disease. The aim is to facilitate doctor select the best suit or tailor-made drug and dosage for each individual. Several pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenomics products and services are now available. For instance, drugs such as ImClone Systems' (Branchburg, NJ, USA) Erbitux (cetuximab) is used to target specific disease subtypes (Hopkins et al., 2006).

The field of pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenomics are still in its infancy, as it is an elaborate and time consuming process. Currently pharmacogenetics methods are being used worldwide, particularly for assessing the safety profile of drugs. Nevertheless, development of custom medications are believe able to bring a lot of benefits such as determining precise dosages of medications and better and safer vaccinations toward the society. 

 

Doelle, H. W., Rokem, S., & Berovi, M. (Ed.). (2009). Medical biotechnology – fundamentals and modern development – part 1. Oxford, UK: Eolss Publishers Co. Ltd. 

Hopkins, M. M., Ibarreta, D., Gaisser, S., Enzing, C. M., Ryan, J., Martin, P. A.,..Forde, T. (2006). Putting pharmacogenetics into practice. Nature Biotechnology, 24, 403-410.

Roses, A. D. (2001). Pharmacogenetics. Human Molecular Genetics, 10(20), 2261-2267.

Surendiran, A., Pradhan, A. A., & Adithan, C. (2008). Role of pharmacogenomics in drug discovery and development. Indian Journal of Pharmacology, 40(4), 137-143.

Biotechnology has been widely applied in New Zealand to meet certain demand such as in health which include the introduction of fluoride in toothpaste that has known to be responsible in reducing tooth decay. In corps and plantation, control of insects and introduction of disease resistance plants has been an innovation that benefits the plant health professionals and the farmers. The most popular example is the introduction of Bacillus thuringiensis in plants such as cotton, where when Bacillus thuringiensis is introduced in cotton, the cotton will be resistant to infestation of the bollworm. This will benefit the farmers as the cost for pesticides can be cut off as the plants itself has been resistant to all those pests. Biotechnology also help to produce crops that can be planted in harsh condition and crops that help with eliminating pollution and save species that undergoes extinction. In medical sector, biotechnology helps in producing protein that is used to fight disease at much faster rate and lower cost. Protein that used as the backbone in medicine production can be incorporated in plants and thus can be used widely. The example of biotechnology application in medicine are vaccinations, blood protein and hormones.

Reference
Science Learning Hub. (2010). Impacts of biotechnology on society. Retrieved on 16th March 2017 from https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/1209-impacts-of-biotechnology-on-society

 

Biotechnology apply all methods and process to transform natural raw materials into beneficial product by the application of living organism. The aims of biotechnology are specific based on what area that the techniques and tools are applied. 

 

There are wide range of application of the techniques and tools of biotechnology in medicine. Red biotechnology - refers to medical biotechnology. It mainly used for human and animal health care. It helps to prevent, diagnose and cure diseases that are related to human and animal. By the aid of biotechnology, scientist will be able to manufacture existing drugs more easily and cheaply. Through genetic engineering, there are lots of modern techniques such as gene therapy, recombinant DNA technology, and other techniques which helps to diagnose diseases and create new genes which able to resist the disease to occur. There are many applications of biotechnology in medicine which commonly used nowadays and gives positive results to the society. Some of the applications are biopharmaceutical, gene therapy, pharmacogenomics, and genetic testing. 

 

Hence, biotechnology could save peoples life by triggering their health issue through the application of biotechnology in medicine itself. Therefore, we could say that biotechnology gives many benefits to the society.

The applications of biotechnology in plant production give benefit to not only the farmer or the plant producer, but also to the consumers in the society.  The most popular application of biotechnology in plant production is the tissue culture technique. Tissue culture is important in increasing the production of high quality of the plant produce. So how do they affect those groups in the society? 

First thing first, is the farmer or plant producer will have a great impact when it comes to tissue culture. This technique enables a rapid production of plant with variety properties such as able to adapt and resist the variety of environmental stress. The adaptation characteristic can be achieved by combining the genetic modification technique together with the plant tissue culture, which will help in rapid production of plant produce. Advance technique applied with low cost of production of these plant produce will give the farmer chance to get and plant the cultivar in inexpensive way. Farmer or the plant produce can also reducing their plant production cost by reducing the application of agrochemicals, that are harm to human and other organism, as pest control as the plant itself are genetically modified to fight the pest on its own. The high yield of production in other hand will help to increase the availability of that plant produce for consumers. This situation is a benefit to the farmer or the plant producer to increase their income. The farmer or the plant producer can also plant the plant that are relatively hard to grow (slow growth) from seed but only use the cultivar that produce by the tissue culture techniques. In the storage and transportation aspect, the farmer or the plant producer will be able to maintain the plant quality from the genetically modified plant that can control the microbial reaction or virus attack. Also, the transportation of high quality of plant produce that is available for different place will increase the farmer’s or plant producers’ income. 

The consumer is also one of the groups in society that gain a benefit from the application of the biotechnology in plant production. Consumers, especially the vegetarian take the plant produce as their food (the plant crops such as vegetables and fruits). The rapid production of these plant crops and better storage and transportation will make the foods are available to anyone and solve the food scarcity in certain population. However, the genetically modified plant crops may not as good toward the consumer as there are the unknown effect of these plant crops towards human health either the short term effects or the long term effects.

REFERENCES:

Junne, G. (n.d.). Biotechnology: the impact on food and nutrition in developing countries. Retrieved March 17, 2017, from http://www.fao.org/docrep/U3550t/u3550t0h.htm

Due to the increase in world population, food scarcity is the most worrying problems. The demands on products of agriculture become high. Farming will need to increase their production on fewer acres to fulfill the needs. Therefore, with the advancement in biotechnology this problem can be slightly solved. 

Biotechnology introduces the Genetic Modification (GM) crops which give extra production and yields. Other than that, Biotechnology also provides the build-in insect and disease protection in plants by identifying suitable strains or gene for modification. Such as Bt. Corn and Bt. Cotton. With that, the crops are no longer can be affected by diseases. Besides, it helps environment by decreasing greenhouse gas.

Somehow, this GM crops still become a concern and issues for certain people as it could introduced to a new health risks.

IMPACT OF BIOTECHNOLOGY ON LIVING THINGS

Biotechnology has brings huge impact towards human, plant as well as animals. With the advancement of technology, human can manipulate genetics to generate something new or to modify existing living things on the earth. Biotechnology clearly has changed and improved the human and animal living conditions.

Below are the examples of POSITIVE impact of biotechnology:

1.      The existence of pest resistance traits of plants. Due to this matter, plants currently can resist towards the pest attack on them and reducing the use of harmful pesticides and insecticides on the farms.

2.      With biotechnology helps, we can produce better quality of fruits and also vegetables.

3.      Plants become more resistant towards viruses and bacteria.

4.      Creation of enzymes that plays major role in the food processing.

Below are the examples of NEGATIVE impact of biotechnology:

1.      The rise of mutant that could kill the native species of plants or animals.

2.      Increase in environmental threats. For example, genetically modified crops often infect monarch butterflies and other species of insects.

    Nowadays biotechnology have an important role in meeting human needs and demands in medicine, agriculture, forensics, bioremediation, biocontrol and biosecurity. In a modern biotechnologies many useful products are made from whole organism or parts of organism such as cell, tissue and organs. 

     One of the biggest uses in Biotechnology is for medicinal purposes. Recent development of application in the medicinal field include pharmacogenomics, drug production, genetic testing and genetic therapy. For example, human insulin is made in genetically engineered bacteria used to treat diabetes. Antibiotics and vaccines are products of microorganisms that are used to treat disease. Vaccination greatly reduced the prevalence of disease and continues to be important for global health today. Gene therapy are used for treating and possibly curing genetic diseases such as AIDS, cancer, Parkinson’s disease and cystic fibrosis. 

Biotechnology has helped in improving the quality of people’s lives for over than 10,000 years and today’s biotechnologies has vary in their application and complexity. However, they all have the potential to change our society. Biotechnology by definition is the use of living organisms or systems in developing or making products or in more specific definition by UN Convention on Biological Diversity, Art 2 says " Biotechnology is any technological application that uses biological systems, living organisms, or derivatives thereof, to make or modify products or processes for specific use". It may also depend on the tools and applications where it often overlaps with the related fields such as biomedical engineering, molecular engineering, bioengineering and so on. 

According to Daejeon, Republic of Korea, February 25, 2013--The Global Agenda Council on Biotechnology, one of the global networks under the World Economic Forum (WEF), which is composed of the world's leading experts in the field of biotechnology, announced today that the council has identified "ten most important biotechnologies" which could help meet rapidly growing demand for energy, food, nutrition, and health. These new technologies,The council said, these new technologies have the potential to increase productivity and also create new jobs. Furthermore, biotechnology is also known as the third wave in biological science and represents such an interface of basic and applied sciences, where gradual and subtle transformation of science into technology can be witnessed. 

Biotechnology comprises a number of technologies based upon increasing understanding of biology at the cellular and molecular level. Therefore, it has many impacts towards the society in many ways. One of the impacts are on agricultural because due to the revolutionary development of this part of science during last couple of decades has advanced drastically. The appalling achievements were made in animal husbandry and also plant cultivation where in plants have been enhanced in four different ways :

· Boost potential for more vigorous growth and maximizing yields

· Strengthen resistance to natural predators and pests that includes insects and disease-causing microorganisms.

· Production of hybrids exhibiting a combination of superior traits derived from two different strains or even different species

· Selection of genetic variants with desirable qualities such as increased protein value, inflate content of limiting amino acids, that are essential in the human diet, or reduce plant size, smaller vulnerability to adverse weather condition.

Another important area of biotechnology is the improvement of livestock. Advancement in efficiency of reproduction, yields of livestock products disease control. For example  milk, wool, eggs, meat, composition of livestock products such as leaner meat, feed value of low quality feeds like straw; are some of the applications of biotechnology.

Reference: BioResource International. 2014. Biotechnology and its impact on agriculture. http://briworldwide.com/biotechnology-and-its-impact-on-agriculture/  

Pharmacogenetics is the study of genetically determines variations that are revealed solely by how the body responds to drugs. This is important because adverse drug reactions are a major cause of morbidity and mortality. Through biotechnology, drug designing and drug production possible to be offered. This designing can be adapted specifically to each individual and their genetic makeup. Pharmacogenetics give many benefits towards the medicinal such as development of custom medications depends on the patient genetic background, prevent taking less or over in drug dosages of medications and producing safer vaccines.   

Nature is the world largest medicine cabinet. People have known about nature’s healing powers for thousands of years. The medicinal used of products derived from natural resources have precedes recorded human history. Throughout human evolutionary timeline, natural products had inevitably gives an enormous impact for medicine and health. Ever since earlier time where our ancestors chewed herbs to relieve pain, or wrapped leaves around wounds to improve healing, natural products have often been the sole means to treat diseases and injuries. Biotechnology has ushered in a new era for the study and use of natural products. Advancement in analytical and structural biochemistry together with molecular biology have provided the tools to purify various compounds and to determine their structures. This in turn has given insights into their action on the human body. Structural biology has made possible the exact determination of the crystal structures of protein target–inhibitor complexes and their effects upon their interaction with molecules extracted from natural compounds. This ensures that natural products made by modern biotechnology is safe for the use of mankind without any long term effects. Subsequently, huge numbers of well-known natural compounds have been identified, analysed and synthesized. These include: salicin from Salix alba (white willow), emetine from Cephaelis ipecacuanha (ipecacuanha), and quinine from Cinchona ledgeriana (cinchona bark). Research organization like Fraunhofer is one of the leading organization that make use of mothernature’s reserves as the main source of nature derived products. Biotechnology have made it possible to utilize nature’s reserves without having the fear of scarcity. 

In addition to that, biotechnology helps in increment of the production yields for the several important of economy crops. From that, it will cause the reduction of fuel, water and eliminate the packaging procedure which involves the manufacturing, distribution and application.

Furthermore, the herbicide tolerant crops will contributes to the use of no-till farming practices, improves the content of the soil moisture which means that the seeds are sow directly into the field and does not ploughing to removes weeds. It also can limits the emission of carbon dioxide by using the power agricultural machines with the fewer fuel. Besides, it helps in the reduction of the soil erosion when there is less tractor traffic that can improves the soil quality and prevent global warming.

Biotechnology also helps in the reduction use of pesticides which can helps in the eco-friendly environment and reduction of on-farm energy consumption. In year 1996 to 2012, there is the accumulative reduction in pesticides on the environmental impact as measured by the Environmental Impact Quotient (EIQ). It was estimated at ~500 million kilograms of active ingredient that saves 8.7% in pesticides that are equal to 18.5%. 

Apart from that, the reduction of waste production which comes from the livestock feedlots and operations of concentrated animal agriculture will helps in the improvement of the feed-products and nutritional supplements of biotech in livestock.

For the study of genomic, the medical genetics has primary goal of identifying genes linked to disease, either in directly or indirectly way (after modifying the host response to particular disease genes). The field of medical genetics are interested on the discovery of targets for therapeutic intervention for patient who at risk for disease. For example, the Human Genome Project has revealed probably about 20,500 human genes and each of the location of genes can now be identified. It has given the world a resource of genomic and proteomic information about the structure, organization and function of the complete set of human genes. 

Such study can have a profound impact on the method disorders are diagnosed, treated and prevented and will bring in changes in future clinical and public health practices. It can improve the public health of society via gene testing and pharmacogenomics. The DNA-based tests can diagnose disease even in asymptomatic individuals. The current tests can even detect mutations associated with rare genetic disorders that results from Mendelian inheritance patterns. The diseases are including myotonic, cystic fibrosis, neurofibromatosis, sickle cell anaemia and Huntington’s disease. Nowadays, tests for more complex mutations such as breast, ovarian and colon cancers are available to check whether it is family history of the disorder or other factors. It could be benefits to patient in order to provide information to help physicians and patients manage the disease more effectively. This application has prevented thousands of deaths each year. 

For proteomics, the mass spectrum allows thousands of proteins to be analysed vastly. An enzyme (trypsin) is used to digest a protein at specific amino acid sequence. Those resulting peptide fragments are energised by laser, they are then separated in spectrometer according to their mass-to-charge ratio. Development of proteomic databases are aided by the identification of a protein from the mass spectrum result. Some of the example of protein database are Swiss-Prot, Protein Information Resource and Protein Data Bank. 

This study is beneficial to the society as it creates therapeutic opportunities such as cancer chemotherapy and treatment of infectious disease. For example, an understanding of the causes of cancer cells at protein level could improve the use of existing therapies and reveal new treatment strategies. For the infectious disease, Chloroquine has been one of the most successful drugs to treat Malaria disease, but the vast emergence of these drug has created Chloroquine resistance. To solve this problem, the knowledge of proteomic applied in medical field to identify the differences between Plasmodium species (pathogen for malaria), identify the immune targets for vaccination and better understanding of the cellular targets of mechanisms of chloroquine resistence. In short, proteomics is expected to have major impact on drug development and improve the human health by treating the infectious or cancer-based diseases.  

 

In my opinion, biotechnology give a huge impact of food biotechnology to the society. By using the knowledge of biotechnology, food can be increased in number of production as well increasing the quality of the food production. Genetically modified food (GMO) created by scientist is one of the biotechnology application that help in increasing both the quantity and the quality of the food production. GMO is done by adding a new interest gene into a organisms and example of such food is such as corn, soybean, potatoes and many more. This eventually help in increasing nation food livestock to support the increasing population in the world. 

 

Besides, the food can be modified to increase the nutritional value in the food that been produce. The high value of nutrition in the food can benefits the society as when they consume the food produce, they can recieve a high amount of nutrition by the using biotechnoogy application than the naturally produce food. 

All of the above do affect society in a way that it helps in improving the world food situation for example increasing the food production and improving the food quality and also the processing method. However despite the advantages, there are also some obstacles, for example some country such as poor or undeveloped country may not be able to apply the techniques and knowledge.  Some people may also lest receptive to the food products, ethics and safety become their main concerns. 

On the other hand, biotechnology could increases the efficiency of water usage. Biotechnology offers an alternative and sustainable way in agriculture field by conserving and maintaining the availability of water globally. This is proven by the first biotech maize hybrids with a degree of drought tolerance introduced in 2013 in USA. Drought tolerance is expected to have a major impact on more sustainable cropping systems worldwide, particularly in developing countries, where drought will likely be more prevalent and severe than industrial countries.
 
 In conclusion, biotech crops have helped reduce the use of pesticides for several economically important crops, contributing to reductions in fuel, water and packaging that are eliminated from the manufacturing, distribution and application processes. Furthermore, biotech crops also assist in bringing higher yields per hectare, making farming more efficient and productive on limited land area. Habitat destruction is the biggest single threat to biodiversity. Higher yields mean farmers can produce increasing amounts of food without increasing arable land and this has a major impact on protecting wildlife habitats.

Extra notes:
Herbicide tolerant crops are great enablers of zero-tillage agriculture, a substantial contributor to sustainable agriculture. Zero-tillage means sowing seed directly into the field, without first ploughing to remove weeds. By leaving the soil undisturbed, more moisture is retained, which is good for water conservation. Other indirect benefits of zero-tillage are improved conservation of beneficial soil insects and earth worms. By using fewer fuel powered agricultural machines, carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere are decreased and fossil fuels are conserved. Less tractor traffic also causes indirect benefits to soil quality, and hence a reduced contribution towards global warming.

 

Biopharmaceuticals concerns with pharmaceuticals or drugs which are utilized as medicines. It majorly concerns with manufacturing of medicinal drugs that may be proteins or nucleic acids without the involvement of chemicals in the manufacturing process. They are developed from microorganisms that naturally synthesizing them. The first material that was permitted for therapeutic usage was biosynthetic human insulin manufactured through recombinant DNA technology. Pig insulin which was used previously is replaced by this and transformed the industry with its achievement. 

 

Another division of medical biotechnology is gene therapy that concerns with analysis and treatment of genetic related diseases and other diseases such as cancer. The treatment in gene therapy includes gene manipulation and rectifying defecting genes. Genes are incorporated, removed or altered according to the requirement of the treatment. This leads to permanent or semi-permanent healing.  

 

Both pharmacogenomics and genetic testing are individual specific. Pharmacogenomics examines the individual genetic information and manufactures drugs that can be incorporated into that specific individual. Genetic testing examines the family tree to reveal the genetic diseases, sex and carrier diagnosis.     
                                           

Besides, the toxic component can be eliminated by biotechnology either by genetic engineering or through food processing. The inexpensive production of additives that increase the nutritive value, flavour, texture or appearance of the final product can be done by eliminating unwanted components. 

By having microbial fermentation, many of the amino acid supplements, vitamins, flavor and flavor enhancers are added to breakfast cereals and specialized high-purification systems will removed all microbes prior to final food production.

There are many foods produced by enzymatic activity or microbial fermentation such as cheese, bread, yogurt, beer and wine. Biotechnology help to improve the production of food: 

Besides, the efficiency of food manufacture can be enhanced by enzymes as processing aids. For example, chymosin is an enzyme that found in the stomachs of animals which is used to make cheese. Thus, biotechnologist had make an effort on yeast, molds and bacteria to produce chymosin which then eliminating reliance on livestock for this enzyme.
Productivity increases may lead to lower prices. Food shortages would not exist in many countries if the problem of post-harvest losses could be solved

 

Year by year, many evolutions and developments of biotechnology in medicine have taken into account to uplift and enhance human life and health. It cannot be denied anymore that the advantages of biotechnology in medicine have come to the maximum level especially for the people around the world. Biotechnology is being applied to enhance the lifestyle of society by developing many powerful vaccines and drugs, introducing sophisticated procedures for many kinds of diagnostics and transplant organs and determining the origins and causes of the diseases.

 

Biotechnology has overcome many problems in term of access to medical treatment. Due to the betterment research and development in medical field, nowadays, the society can easily get powerful and advanced medical treatments even at a low and affordable cost. For example, in pharmacogenomics, it is basically a study of genetics and pharmaceuticals which explains how a gene from human reacts towards different drugs due to many factors such as age, weight, environment and genetic influences. Pharmacogenomics widely applies biotechnology in order to produce drugs that can adapt within the genetic makeup of individual so that the drug is effective enough to treat the individual. The society will not having any worries during the prescription of the drugs because it is safe and effective enough to cure diseases with accurate dosages even for the first time taken.

 

Besides that, Nano medicine is another example of advanced therapies that use the application of biotechnology in medicine, specifically nanotechnology to improve human health by using molecular tools and molecular knowledge of the human body (Parmar, 2016). Nano medicine gives a big impact to the society without any doubt as it is the most advanced and sophisticated therapy that involves an operation of the biological system inside living cells at the Nano scale to treat diseases such as cancer and AIDS. Nano medicine can target and repair the mutant molecules so well that the drug is working efficiently in the human body without causing so much invasiveness and negative effects to human. It also helps the society to get treatment within short period of time at the reasonable cost. Mortality and morbidity rates among society can also be reduced with Nano medicine.

 

Other example of application is genetic therapy that treats various genetic diseases such as cancer by introducing new desired genes to replace the mutant genes. In this case, application of biotechnology helps the researcher to determine the origin of structure and function of the mutant genes and the importance of the genes for human body so that the affected human with genetic diseases can be cured.

 

EW Content Team. (2011). Biotechnology in medicine. Retrieved on March 11, 2017 from http://www.economywatch.com/business-technology/biotechnology/biotechnology-in-medicine.html

Arnold, Paul & Zaykoski, Leigh A. (2008). Medicinal applications in biotechnology: the uses and applications of biotechnology in the medicinal world continue to grow. Retrieved on March 11, 2017 from http://www.brighthub.com/science/genetics/articles/2103.aspx

Parmar, Priyanka. (2016). Nano medicine: meaning, advantages and disadvantages. Retrieved on March 11, 2017 from http://www.biotechnologynotes.com/nano-biotechnology/nano-medicine-meaning-advantages-and-disadvantages/809

As we know that biotechnology has given an enormous contribution to all mankind in enhancing many aspects such as economic sector, human health, food security, and many others. 

Breeding the plant in which is using tissue culture gives several benefits including rapid reproduction and multplication of cultivars, producing healthy cultivars which are free of any kinds of viruses and pathogenic agents, rapid adaptation and selection of cultivars that are resistant to certain stress factors, the seed material is available troughout the year, and so on. This kind of application is quite achievable (which means does not require high cost to conduct) and can be applied easily in developing countries whereby this can help to improve local varieties of food crops whereby it is much well-known as genetically modified (GMO) food. 

Another benefit of plant in biotechnology is that agrochemicals is no longer required which small farmers in developing countries often cannot afford. A reduction in the use of agrochemicals implies smaller residues in the final product. Until now, many researchers efforts regarding the genetic engineering of plants have been spent making crop resistant to important herbicides rather than increasing their resistance to pest. But then again, it is no longer a high priority for researchers in most developing countries.

However, there are always pros and cons regarding the impact of plant in biotechnology to most society whereby mostly people are concerned whether the GMO products are actually safe to be consumed or not. 

Today variety biotechnology applications have been designed to meet human needs or demands in order to improve our quality of life that we as humans were responsible for creating especially in food production due to human needs and increases in human population. These can be known as genetically modified plants to produce genetically modified food. Generally, food biotechnology is defined as the application of technology to modify genes of animals, plants, and microorganisms to create new species which have desired production, marketing, or nutrition related properties. Undeniable biotechnology has its own pros and cons to society. In my opinion, application of biotechnology in food production contributes positive impact and negative impact.

Positive impacts of food biotechnology to society include:
i.            Offer better overall quality and taste.
ii.            Lowered the risk of crop failure.
iii.            Seeds are resistance to insects and generating healthier     crops.
iv.            Genetically modified foods have a longer shelf life.
v.            Less chemicals, time, machinery and land are needed.
vi.            New nutritionally enhanced foods.
vii.            Scientists have engineered plants to produce vaccines.

Negative impacts of food biotechnology to society include:
i.            Pose significant allergy risks.
ii.            Cause environmental damage.
iii.            Lowered resistance to antibiotics.
iv.            Cause genes to migrate.
v.            Offer no economic value compared to growing non-GMO foods.

          Farmers who applied the biotech crops in farming have reduced the amount of greenhouse gas emissions which is almost equivalent to removing 6.3 million cars from the road for one year. 

          The applications of biotechnology in farming have contributed to the development of insect and disease resistance. Particular genes which are resistant to an insect or disease are inserted into the plant that formerly susceptible to pest. For example, the use of B.t cotton has been inserted with Bacillus thuringiensis, a common soil bacterium. Introduction of that gene has enabled plants to be resistant to bollworm infestation. 

          Besides, crops yield are able to be produced in multiple amount through tissue culture techniques. It is possible to grow our desire plant in laboratory within just a short period of time. In directly, economy of the farmers can be improved. 

          Varieties of food products also have been produced through biotechnology applications. Different genes are inserted and removed from the plants in order to yield new products with minor changes in the plant’s nutrients. 

          Plants are known to be the food source for society. Therefore, it is important to yield products with sufficient nutrients. However, malnutrition in the world has reached epidemic proportions. The urge to develop foods with higher nutrition levels has reached the bio-technologist. There are few examples of these products which available in the market, such as peanuts that no longer contain a common allergen and the “golden rice” which is richer in beta-carotene and iron. 

          As the conclusion, biotechnology has yield products that benefits society especially the consumers, growers and environment.  

The application of biotechnology in medicine area is known as red biotechnology. Red biotechnology included designing organism to produce pharmaceutical products like antibiotics and vaccines as well as designing engineering of genetic cures through genetic manipulation. Red biotechnology majorly divided into biopharmaceuticals, pharmacogenomics, gene therapy and genetic testing (Biotechnology in Medicine: Revolutionizing Lives, 2011).

Biopharmaceuticals deal with pharmaceuticals or drugs that used as medicines, which produced using biotechnology. They are proteins (antibodies), nucleic acids (DNA, RNA or antisense oligonucleotides) used for in vivo diagnostic or therapeutic purposes, and are produced by means other than direct extraction from a non-engineered (native) biological source (Biopharmaceutical, 2016). No chemicals are involved in the synthesis process. The proteins are synthesis naturally from micro-organisms.  The first such substances approved for therapeutic use was recombinant human insulin, which can replaced pig insulin (Biotechnology in Medicine: Revolutionizing Lives, 2011). Human insulin which prepared from recombinant DNA technology can make unlimited supply, unlike those from animal insulin (Insulin, 2015).

Pharmacogenomics derived from words ‘pharmacology’ and ‘genomics’. Therefore, it is a study of relationship between pharmaceuticals and genomics. It is a study on the designing and producing of drug that is adapted to each person’s genetic make-up. The drugs that developed from pharmaceutical companies are based on the proteins, enzymes and RNA molecules that associated with specific genes and diseases. These tailor-made medicines not only maximize therapeutic effects, but also decrease damage to nearby healthy cells (Biotechnology in Medicine, 2017).

Gene therapy deals with the diagnosis and treatment of genetic diseases and cancer in red biotechnology. The treatment of gene therapy included manipulating gene and correcting defecting genes, for example insertion, deletion and modification of genes. The most common form of gene therapy is the insertion of functional genes into an unspecific genomic location to replace a dysfunctional or mutated gene. Gene therapy can provide permanent or semi-permanent cure effect (Biotechnology in Medicine, 2017).

Genetic testing is a medical test that identifies the changes in genes, chromosomes or proteins. There are two types of gene tests. For the first type, a short piece of DNA sequences that complementary to mutated sequences will be design. These probes seek for complement base pair, bind to it and flag the mutation. In the second type, gene test may be conduct by comparing the DNA sequence of patient’s gene to a normal version of gene. Understanding the cause of genetic disorder is helpful to many families (Biotechnology in Medicine, 2017).

Biotechnology is therefore occupy a major portion in medicine industry and is revolutionizing the human lives.

Biopharmaceutical.(2016). Retrieved from https://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/biopharmaceutical.htm

Biotechnology in Medicine. (2017). Retrieved from https://www.boundless.com/biology/textbooks/boundless-biology-textbook/biotechnology-and-genomics-17/biotechnology-119/biotechnology-in-medicine-480-11702/
Biotechnology in Medicine: Revolutionizing Lives Of People. (2011). Retrieved from https://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2011/03/biotechnology-in-medicine-revolutionizing-lives-of-people/

Insulin. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.idf.org/worlddiabetesday/toolkit/pwd/insulin

Biotechnology has a potential to rapidly identify biological threats, develop and manufacture potential cures; and develops accurate, cheap, fast and personalized diagnostics and prognostics system. Biotechnology is now offering the potential to rapidly develop therapeutics and vaccine against virtually any target. These technologies, including targeted immunotherapies, messenger therapeutics, structure-based engineering and conjugated nanoparticles have already produced candidates with the substantial potential to improve human health.

One of the fields in red biotechnology is gene therapy where it deals with the diagnosis and treatment of genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis and also other diseases like cancer. Gene therapy is an experimental technique that uses gene to treat or prevent genetic diseases. Although this technique is still new but it has a great potential to develop as one of the treatments to treat diseases.

            According to Biotechnology Innovation Organization (2017), there are decades of documented evidence that demonstrated agricultural biotechnology as a safe and beneficial technology that contributes to environmental, economic, and society sustainability. An example of agriculture biotechnology is the development of genetically modified crops or GM crops. Basically, it is a transgenic plant that have been genetically modified using recombinant DNA technology. For instance, insect resistant GM maize are grown on 10.6 million hectares’ area in the USA. This can lead to the increase of crop and food yield worldwide and eradicate the problems of poverty and hunger (Key et al., 2008).

               Besides that, it can prevent the dependency of farmers on using chemicals such as pesticides, weedicides, and herbicides on crops. It was stated that the use of pesticides has been reduced by 790 million pounds which is 8.8 percent reduction since the year 1997 (Biotechnology Innovation Organization, 2017). Thus, lowering the farming costs and enhancing the environmental conditions and safety at the same time. It was also stated that farmers get a greater financial return by implementing more environmentally farming practices through the use of biotechnology. In addition to that, the food produced will have increased nutritive value, better quality, and safe to be consumed by the society (Caswell, 1994). Therefore, it can be concluded that biotechnology have various positive impacts not only to the economy and environment but to the society as a whole. 

Biotechnology Innovation Organization. (2017). Agricultural              Biotechnology Benefits Farmers and the Environment. Retrieved from https://www.bio.org/advocacy/letters/agricultural-biotechnology-benefits-farmers-and-environment

Caswell, M. F., Fuglie, K. O., & Klotz, C. A. (1994). Agricultural Biotechnology: An Economic Perspective. Herndon, VA: United States Department of Agriculture.

Key, S., Ma, J. K. C., & Drake, P. M. W. (2008). Genetically Modified Plants and Human Health. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 101(6), 290-298.

Wiekzorek, A. (2003). Use of Biotechnology in Agriculture: Benefits and Risks. Retrieved from https://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/oc/freepubs/pdf/BIO-3. 

Despites everything, many negative effect also had shown corresponding with the development of biotechnology. Numerous problems regarding human health, agricultural and environmental protection had arisen and need to be addressed. Biotechnologies have elevated environmental threats, ethical and social issues that demand attention. The example of negative impact is when people consume of such crops that contain combination of foreign genes and crop genes; it has high potential to be hazardous to human health which often results in cancer.

Biotechnology is the phenomenon in biological science where transformation of science into technology occur. Biotechnology is defined as the application of scientific and engineering principals in processing of material by biological agents to provide goods and services. Biotechnology comprises a number of technologies based upon increasing understanding of biology at the cellular and molecular level.

The use of biotechnology in plant production is one of the impacts in biotechnology to society. First, plant breeding has been improved by in vitro development for better adaptation to a specific environment. Technique of tissue culture being used and has several advantages such as the rapid reproduction and multiplication of cultivars, production of healthy cultivars that free from viruses and pathogenic agents, the availability of seed material throughout the year rather than seeds which involved the seasonal cycle. It also does not need expensive tools and can be applied easily in developing countries that help to improve local varieties of food-crops. For example, one tuber yields several kilograms of tubers after two years by using traditional methods to propagate potatoes while tissue-culture technique can yield several thousand kilograms of tubers using the same tuber.

Next, biotechnology can help reduce the use of agrochemicals which small farmers in developing countries often cannot afford. A reduction in the use of agrochemicals implies fewer residues in the final product. For example, nitrogen-fixing bacteria are being used to inoculate the soil thus allowing reduced inputs of fertilizer that expensive and often presents a heavy drain. Biotechnology can helps to identify the strains of bacteria that most suitable for specific crops and soils. Biological pesticides and improved screening techniques at an early stage may also reduce the amount of agrochemicals needed to fight specific diseases.

Lastly, biotechnology can be used to increase production. For example by improving flowering capacity, increasing photosynthesis and the intake of nutritive elements. Cassava and rice are the main sources of calories for millions of people. However, the protein content of both staples is low and this may lead to a diet which is not well balanced for those who lack access to a variety of foods. Genetic engineering can be play a role to modify the amino acid composition of plant proteins in order to increase the nutritional value of these staple crops 

 Genomics is a global  study of the entire genome of a species, in order to identify how genes within the genome interact with each other, and in turn activate or repress genes. Proteomics however, predicts the overall function and structure with underlying biological processes, including disease mechanisms.  Genomics and proteomics impacts society in multiple ways. Genomes and proteomes constitute the building blocks of all life, and is therefore a fundamental area that is integral to the development of all sectors of biology. Its impact extends into areas such as health, bioprocess and manufacturing. However, to society, its biggest impact would most certainly be in the area of health. In health, genomics and proteomics can stimulate development in the following areas:

i)                    Understanding disease mechanisms

ii)                   Drug development and response

iii)                 Accurate diagnosis  

 Firstly, genomics and proteomics would enable scientist to understand mechanisms of disease much better. The linkages between disease and genetic factors have become more visible since the genomic revolution. In 1983, researchers found that diseased patients with colorectal cancer had less DNA methylation then normal tissue from the same patient (Feinberg and Vogelstein, 1983). DNA methylation causes a genomic occurrence known as epigenetics which is the activation or deactivation of particular genes due to triggers in the environment. Using genomic information, researchers are able to diagnose diseases from the source of the mutation. Treatment such as epigenetic therapy can be employed to deal with genomic problems especially related to epigenetics. These new found therapies can deal with the problem right at the core. In epigenetic therapy, drugs are produced that are able to prevent DNA methylation which silences genes, thus, reactivating them. Examples of drugs used in epigenetic therapy are 5-azacytidine and 5-aza-2’-deoxycytidine (Egger, Liang, Aparicio, & Jones, 2004). Proteomics also play a vital role as proteins act as the machinery of the genome. Understanding protein functions and production will give a better understanding on disease pathways and mechanisms. More effective drugs can be developed which can interfere with the disease pathway to breakdown the proteins that function in the disease mechanism. 

Thanks to accelerated progress that has been made in sequencing technology, integrating genomic knowledge into the everyday healthcare treatment has become possible. Human disease, has recently been understood to be heterogenous in nature. However, classical modes of diagnosis and treatment, such as histopathological exams do not take this into account. This creates multiple known problems in drug discovery, that are, significantly reduces drug discovery and drug development success rates. It compromises the overall drug efficacy by administering drugs that patients may have no response to. Lastly, It may harm patients by triggering unnecessary or dangerous side effects. It has been proven that 20%-95% of the variation of drug response can be attributed to genomics      differences (Wood, Evans, & McLeod, 2003). Therefore, genomics and proteomics would completely revolutionise medicine and drug administration. Personalised medicine would become possible, and drugs can be developed to deal directly with the genomic irregularity as opposed to symptoms of the disease. 

Also, diagnosis would become more accurate with genomics and proteomics. Patients can be sequenced using New-Era sequencing methods, which will be able to give accurate information to physicians before they make any decisions. Advances in proteomic analysis tools such as mass spectrometry and 2D gel-electrophoresis has made simultaneous analaysis of thousands of low molecular weight proteins, which may reveal patterns of disease and potentially useful for early detection of and assessing prognosis.

 

 

 

Egger, G., Liang, G., Aparicio, A., & Jones, P. (2004). Epigenetics in human disease and prospects for epigenetic therapy. Nature, 429(6990), 457-463. 

Feinberg, A., & Vogelstein, B. (1983). Hypomethylation distinguishes genes of some human cancers from their normal counterparts. Nature, 301(5895), 89-92. 

Wood, A., Evans, W., & McLeod, H. (2003). Pharmacogenomics — Drug Disposition, Drug Targets, and Side Effects. New England Journal Of Medicine, 348(6), 538-549. http://dx.doi.org/10.1056/nejmra020526

Biopharmaceutical production is a potentially growing industry and was seen as the future of medicine since people will be more and more relying on these products. According to Otto and his colleague (2014), the global revenue of biopharmaceutical has reached $163 billion, which is 20% more than conventional pharmaceutical market. The use of biotechnology in discovering and manufacturing new medicines has also been increased dramatically among pharmaceutical industry. In today’s trend, biotechnology and pharmaceutical firms were significantly involve in high level of consolidation as well as unlimited acquisitions and investments on biopharma industry over the past few years (Mukherjee, 2015). Hence, biopharma is not only benefits human in the aspect of health protection but it also ensures economic growth as well as job security. 

While seeing on current development, biopharma has highly dependent on technologies, particularly in creation of more comprehensive products that goes beyond drugs. For example, precision medicine is an evolving approach which integrates genetic information and lifestyle of a person for disease treatment and prevention (National Institutes of Health (NIH), 2017). These pre-diagnostic tools can help researcher to figure out the most effective therapies for individual patient by analysing their genomic data. While nanotechnology is also an emerging scope in biopharma as the nanoparticles was believed to travel easily around human body to assist in delivery of anti-cancer drugs. The challenge nowadays is that there is still shortage of expertise to handle the sophisticated operational and technological challenge. It is also undeniable that high cost production often results in high command of selling price in society. Biopharma has numerous foreseen opportunities in future and hopefully their development can truly provide us with a lot of benefits. 

 

Reference 

Mukherjee, S. Y. (2015). 10 top trends driving the biopharma industry today. Retrieved from http://www.biopharmadive.com/news/10-top-trends-driving-the-biopharma-industry-today/405822/

National Institutes of Health (NIH). What is precision medicine? Retrieved from https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/precisionmedicine/definition

Otto, R., Santagostino, A., & Schrader, U. (2014). Rapid growth in biopharma: Challenges and opportunities. Retrieved from http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/pharmaceuticals-and-medical-products/our-insights/rapid-growth-in-biopharma

Another amazing discovery that has been using biotechnology application is the development of special tooth decay fighting microbes. A company in Florida, United States of America known as ONI Biopharma has been able to develop a strain of bacteria called SMaRT. This bacterium unable to produce lactic acid, however it able to release an antibiotic that can kill the bacteria strains that causing tooth decay. Advances in DNA sequencing produced vast gene databases for many of tooth decay cause bacteria. These bacterial blueprints help scientist to identify specific genes essential to decaying process, and with possibility to directly target these genes and inactivate the ability of these bacteria to cause tooth decay (Davis, 2015).

Lastly, another example of discovery through the advancement of biotechnology in medicine is sensory for asthma. University of Pittsburgh has been used biotechnology in medicine to create a polymer-coated carbon nanotube which can monitor level of nitric oxide in the breath of a person. A person with asthma will have a spike of nitric oxide level as the airways grow inflamed. This research was led by Alexander Star, in which he worked on the Nanomix Sensation nano-electronic detection company which launches biodetection devices (University of Pittsburgh, 2007). 

As a conclusion, the advancement of modern technology is without doubt has been giving positives impact to society specifically in medicine wise. With all of the revolutionary discoveries that have been or will be developed by scientists will give benefits to the society in order to improve and enhance human life.

References

Davis, C. E. (2015). Tooth Decay. Retrieved from http://www.drcheryldavis.com/tooth-decay.html

Ew Content Team. (2011). Biotechnology in Medicine. Retrieved from http://www.economywatch.com/business-technology/biotechnology/biotechnology-in-medicine.html

MedGadget. (2007). Scientist Create Artificial Lymph Nodes; Demonstrate Strong Immune Response. Retrieved from http://www.medgadget.com/2007/07/scientists_create_artificial_lymph_nodes_demonstrate_strong_immune_response.html

University of Pittsburgh. (2007). People With Asthma Could Breathe Easier Anywhere With Nano-Sensor That Could Indicate Oncoming Attacks and Help Monitor Symptoms. Retrieved from http://www.news.pitt.edu/news/Star-asthma-nano-sensor

 

One of the benefits of food in biotechnology to society is more food can be produce in a shorter time for the ever-increasing population. This can be achieved by modifying the gene so that the speed of growth time can be increased. For instance, salmon with the modified gene can grow faster than the wild-type salmon (US Food & Drug Administration, n.d.). They are also active most of the year, as opposed to only part of the year (Park, 2015). Besides, biotechnology can also reduce the risk of malnutrition among the population especially in developing countries. This is because by biotechnology, food with higher nutrition can be produced. For example, golden rice is produced through genetic engineering and it is rich in beta-carotene. Thus, it can be used to solve the vitamin A deficiency in the developing nations (IRRI, n.d.). Other benefits of food in biotechnology include removing common allergen in peanuts and producing fruits with longer shelf-lives to prevent spoilage.

Nevertheless, biotechnology also has its negative impacts. For example, the salmon with modified gene may outcompete the wild-type population in its natural habitat. Meanwhile, the cultivation of golden rice may cause widespread use of the Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) which may causes the loss of biodiversity. In conclusion, although biotechnology can help to solve the food problem in the world, the use of biotechnology should be well regulated to reduce the negative impacts and at the same time, maximize its benefits.

US Food & Drug Administration (n.d.). AquAdvantage Salmon Fact Sheet. Retrieved March        27, 2017, from             https://www.fda.gov/AnimalVeterinary/DevelopmentApprovalProcess/GeneticEngine            ering/GeneticallyEngineeredAnimals/ucm473238.htm

Park, A. (2015). Salmon That's Genetically Engineered: What You Need to Know. Retrieved         March 27, 2017, from http://time.com/4120648/fda-approved-aquabounty-gmo-        salmon/

IRRI. (n.d.). Golden Rice. Retrieved March 27, 2017, from http://irri.org/golden-rice 

Genomic and proteomic are always the interested subject to be learnt and research on it. The society began to aware about it when the theory of central dogma was published to the public (National Research Council, 2006). This theories of genetic code include replication of DNA, transcription of DNA into RNA and translation of RNA into protein. A huge impact that influence the society when the Human genome project was accomplished at year 2003. Since then, scientists are able to access a complete human genome and in the future our understanding of human health and cancer can be done through the study of proteomic. Genomic is the study and exploration of gene through its sequence and function while proteomic is to study the dynamic protein changes when response to intracellular and extracellular signal (Primer, n.d.). Basically, contribution of genomic and proteomic can be looked through three perspective, which are medicine, forensic science, and edible vaccine.

Medicine
 Genomic and proteomic have been adoption in medicine and biology-pharmacogenetics. After the accomplishment of Human Genomic Project, scientists currently are trying to utilised the known human genome set to prescript medicine with suitable dosage to each individual patient according to their metabolisms, absorption and without trigger any allergic effects. Moreover, with the advance technology scientist now are able to transform spinach leaf into a beating human heart tissue.

Forensic science to solve crime.
 Forensicist can now rely on DNA finger printing for conviction. Flakes of DNA present in almost every cell of living organisms can be used as an evident to identify criminal among the suspects. This techniques can be done because of the different length of repeated units of DNA (short tandem repeat) and the unknown region of DNA that encodes for proteins (Norrgard, 2008).

Edible vaccine
 This invention requires knowledge from both genetic and proteomic to modified and produce vaccine in our daily diet such as banana, rice, tomato and potato. Edible vaccines is cost-effective, easy to administer, and accepted by the social especially poor developing countries (Lal et al., 2008).It involves transfer the desired genes into plant and culture them to express the gene for protein synthesis. The vaccine-contained plant does not require freeze storage and are safe from any diseases cause by unsterile needles.

 

References:

Lal, P., Ramachandran, V. G., Goyal, R., & Sharma, R. (2007). Edible vaccines: current status and future. Indian journal of medical microbiology, 25(2), 93.

National Research Council. (2006). Reaping the benefits of genomic and proteomic research: intellectual property rights, innovation, and public health. National Academies Press.

Norrgard, K. (2008). Forensics, DNA fingerprinting, and CODIS. Nature Education, 1(1), 35.

Primer, A. (n.d.).  Genomics and Its Impact on Science and Society.

 

Biotechnology is known to be the basic for the exploration and manipulation of living organisms may it be in terms of structure or processes, and also to the most specific molecular level. With the aid of modern technologies, biotechnology had contributed and brought medicine advancement to the next level and kept improving ever since. For example, the study of specific and differential gene expression had a significant impact in the field of medicine especially in the understanding of cancer development and immunopathologic diseases. With the deep understanding of these diseases, scientists had successfully developed or currently developing therapeutic agents which targets specificly against these pathogenic agents. In addition, since some pathogenic agents are rapidly developing resistance against these therapeutic agents, continuous development of new drugs is a must and biotechnology plays a crucial role in this matter.

 

For example, recombinant DNA technology, which is one of the field of biotechnology had been applied to produce modified cytokines which had been established as an effective therapeutic agent which can control the development of cancer and some other infectious diseases. However, although the advancement of the medical sector had significantly increased the health of the society, but there are still some other concerns which may require more attention such as epigenetics since each individual may react differently towards these medicines and no therapeutic agent is known to have one hundred percent effectiveness towards a specific disease.

GM foods or crops can bring a lot of benefit to farmers because they can reduce the production costs, increasing the yields, reducing environmental damage done by crop spraying and producing food with extra benefits. The advancement in food biotechnology can benefit society in two main ways; by aiding growing more food on less land and through new nutritionally enhanced foods. Scientists have conducting research to make foods such as soy and peanuts, with fewer allergens by removing the proteins which cause allergic reactions in people. As conclusion, application of biotechnology in food gives many benefits such as environmental, economic and nutritional to society and people can recognized the safety of these food products with respect to human health and environment. 

References:

Food Insight. (2016). Fact sheet: Benefits of food biotechnology. Retrieved from http://www.foodinsight.org/articles/fact-sheet-benefits-food-biotechnology 

Saunders, C., Kaye-Blake, W., & Cagatay, S. (2007). Economic impacts of GM crops. Retrieved from https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/2180-economic-impacts-of-gm-crops     

Saunders, C., Kaye-Blake, W., & Cagatay, S. (2007). GM food and New Zealand consumers. Retrieved from https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/2179-gm-food-and-new-zealand-consumers      

Science Learning Hub. (2010). Impacts of biotechnology on society. Retrieved from https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/1209-impacts-of-biotechnology-on-society        

Biotechnology are often associated with the creation of something that are not occurring in nature. It mostly involved the manipulation of organisms genetics by using genetic engineering techniques thus creating new organisms (GMO). Somehow, the society are divided in opinions about the application of biotechnology as some members may claim that biotechnology is the toolbox that solves problems while some may claim that biotechnology is slowly ruining the planet instead of sustaining or improving it. For example, improvement on agricultural crops brings benefits to the world by improving the plants genetic makeup; disease resistance, pest resistance etc.

However, with the benefits, the disadvantages also came along. The environment are harmed in such a way that the nature and function of ecosystem are disturbed. The release of GM crops into the environment may unintendedly harm other organism (non-target species). Popular example is the monarch butterfly caterpillars harmed by B.t corns causing high mortality rate. By these, there are more possible harms caused to other non-target species besides the monarch butterflies. Pest resistance crops also increases the possibilities of mutation in small organism such insects, causing resistance toward pesticides. An example is some mosquitoes  developed resistance against insecticides (DDT). The release of transgenic plant to the environment also allows possibilities of gene flow from GM plants to wild-type relative plants via pollination etc. If hybrid plants (GMO/wild) are produced and they have competitiveness advantages over the wild plants population, it disturbs the ecosystem thus leading to the reduction of diversity of wild plants. It may not only occurs among plants but also in simpler organisms, insects or smaller animals. 
Back to the source of GMO production, biotechnology companies and research center releases effluent or biological waste of researches to the environment. If the effluent containing modified microorganism or biological products are not properly treated, there will be possibilities of harms. All the above situations not only causes nuisance to the society but also causes health risks as well as another high-cost researches to reverse the situations. Also, a damaged ecosystem will harm the human society as the human survival is dependent on the health of the ecosystem if the risk of biotechnology researches are not well evaluated.

The application of biotechnology in the medical field that give a huge impact to the society is the pharmacogenomic this application  is used for studying the response of  the genetic makeup of an individual to drugs. This application plays significant roles for  the development of suitable medicine for an individual where it can maximize the effectiveness of the drug as well as it can be used to determine more accurate drug dosage.Besides that pharmacogenomic also can create more effective and safe vaccine that useful , cheaper and more stable

Furthermore biotechnology also applied in the genetic testing where this approach is used for determining sex,identity testing, to detect various types of cancer,  as well as for  genetic diagnosis, this process are useful for identifying suitable drug to treat the disease. It also can be used for detecting the mutation that causes the genetic disorders such as cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia and others. Other is gene therapy this approach is used for cure the genetic disorder such as severe combined immune deficiency (SCID) by using the  genetic engineering technique to introduce the good gene in the genome. The application of biotechnology in the medical field is give a great impact to the society and improve the quality of medical sector.

            Consumers could get an allergic reaction to the food when they consume food that is contaminated with the gene or bacteria transmitted through cross-pollination unknowingly.
             Seeds of GM crops are relatively higher in cost, so the poor farmers have a hard time reaching them.
             There are also some fear of health risks that might not be know now and developed later in the future.

 

Levetin, E and McMahon, K., 2006, Plant And Society,Fourth Edition,New York City, 524p.

 

At its simplest, biotechnology can be defined as a broad discipline in which involves the use of biology and modern technology to improve human welfare. The United Nation Convention on Biological Diversity elucidates biotechnology as the implementation of any technological application which utilizes biological processes, living organism or cellular components in order to modify or develop any products or processes for a specific purpose. The applications of biotechnology are numerous and wide-ranging involving from improving seed variety in the agriculture sector, making pharmaceutical products, contributes to various innovations in the food sector and also aid in treating previously incurable diseases.

Over the past few years, biotechnology has made landmark breakthroughs in various areas such as food, animal, plant, bio-pharmacy and much more. One of the major areas in biotechnology is the medicine sector in which most current research is taking place, various breakthroughs are seen and arouse largest number of ethical and legal issues. Modern biotechnology occupies major portions of the medicine sector as it has brought revolution to the structure and organization of this field thus lead to the revolutionizing the peoples' lives. The medicine sector is a very large institute as it deals with every major and minor aspect of human life.  Therefore, the adapatations of biotechnology in the area of medicine is known as red biotechnology. Red biotechnology is a broad area which plays the notable role in several branches of medicine sector from a comparatively simple thing like the production of medicines that are more effective in term of effect-wise and cost wise to the most complicated branches of medicines which are treating genetic diseases. It also includes improving already existing medical therapies and techniques to treat malignant diseases such as cancer by reducing the side effects of the medicines without compromising with the effectiveness and develops drugs which can be used in our bodies artificially. The broad areas of red biotechnology can be majorly divided into four main branches which are gene therapy, genetic testing, biopharmaceiuticals, and pharmacogenomics.

Gene therapy is the branch of red biotechnology which also contributes to the development of the medical sector. It is an experimental technique which deals with genes for the diagnosis and treatment of various disease such as cancer and others genetic diseases. The technique employs in the gene therapy treatment usually involves correcting defective genes and manipulating genes by either inserting, deleting or modifying genes as the treatment requires to yield permanent or semi permanent cure. The insertion of functional genes to replace a dysfunctional or mutated gene into an unspecified genomic location is the most conventional form of gene therapy. Since gene theraphy technique is still new and currently developed, therefore numerous ongoing researchs are still taking place to ensure it is safe and effective. For example, researchers are testing several approches to gene therapy which include inserting a new gene into the body to help fight a disease, replacing a mutated gene which causes disease with a healthy copy of the gene and knocking out mutated and dysfunctional gene. Currently, the gene theraphy is only being tested to treat diseases with no cures. Gene therapy offers propitious treatment options for a number of diseases such as cancer, viral infections, and inherited disorders. Due to its promising potentetial, it is believed that this technique will permit doctors to treat numerous disorder easily by just inserting new gene to the patient’s cell without require to perform any surgery or the usage of drugs.

The establishment of the gene theraphy procedures in treating disease is view as more successful treatment as compared to any other conventional methods. This is because the technique itself work at the basic level of the human body which is our gene. Besides that, gene theraphy allow the treatment to certain diseases to became less cumbesome because it reduces the dependence on medicines and injections. Although gene theraphy beliefs to be the best solution for treating genetic and acquired disease such as cancer and AIDS, there are many obstacles it must face including limited knowledge of the functions of the gene, gene delivery tools and extremely expensive before it can become practical approch for treating disease.

As the world is facing new challenges like public health improvements and a newly birth of infectious disease, more advanced technology are required to provide a solution to this problem. Another biotechnology development such as tissue engineering also contributes to the advancement in the medical field. Tissue engineering can be defined as the ability to grow cells into whole tissue thus changing the way medicines is practiced and therapies are delivered. The development of biochip which can be used to measure the concentration of glucose in the human saliva has changed the way the therapies is delivered because it eliminates the need for the diabetes patients to draw their blood in order to check their glucose level. The latest biochip technology now enables fast and portable flu strain detection hence, allowing faster diagnosis of disease. Numerous methods of diagnostic imaging aid physicians to form a diagnosis of the disease by only examining  patient’s anatomy without requiring invasive procedure. Diagnostic imaging such as CT scans, Ultrasound and MRI scans employ the usage of the variety of machines and technique in order to establish pictures of the structures and activities inside the human body. The common procedure for imaging test is that doctors will insert a tiny camera attached to tiny and long tube also known as scope inside the patient body. The tubes are moves throughout the body passageway thus assist the doctors to view particular organs like lungs or colons. These procedures enable a faster diagnosis to be done and also painless. Another breakthrough for the diagnostic imaging in the medical field is the establishment of nuclear scans which utilize radioactive substances in order to view structures and functions inside the patient’s body. For that reason, this procedure also known as radioisotope scans. Special camera equipped with the technology to detect radioactivity is used to produce and makes images. This procedure only requires the patient to take a small amount radioactive materials either by injection or swallows it before lying on the beds so that camera can take images. This process is usually conducted for 20 to 45 minutes. The benefits of this procedure are it enables doctors to diagnose many conditions such as infections, injuries and also cancers by showing how organs like lungs and hearts are working.

As a conclusion, the impact of the biotechnology into medical advances contributed greatly to the improvement of the public healthcare due to the fact that the technology enables faster and accurate diagnosis of a disease. In addition, the development of advanced surgical instruments aids the surgeon to perform surgery in safety and minimally invasive ways. This achievement not only brings the medical field to a higher levele but also provides numerous advantages to the society.

With the increasing of the human population in the world, the demand for food supply also keep on increasing. Food biotechnology can help this problem by increasing the production of food supply to society through for example lower the spoilage of food during storage. For example, are fruit and vegetable. Before the existence of biotechnology, fruit and vegetable are not easily kept without having spoilage or disease during storage. They are fragile and easily infected by bacteria. It is estimated that losses during post-harvest of fruit and vegetables due to microbial attacks are 10 to 30% per year. The harvest can be increase by treating the fruit and vegetables with biological control agents such as strain of Bacillus subtilis, Pseudomonas syringae, Cryptococcus infirmo-minutus and Candida sake. These bacteria can help to reduce control the disease in fruit and increase the food production and eventually increase and sustain the food supply to human.

Food biotechnology also benefits the consumers by increasing the nutrients in the foods. For example, is golden rice which was produced by genetic engineering. This rice was produced in order to reduce the rate of mortality of children who has the deficiency of Vitamin A in their diets. This rice was produced in order to biosynthesis beta-carotene which the precursor of vitamin A. Besides, researcher also produced cooking oils which contain less than 1% of trans fat.

However, the drawback of food biotechnology is that it can cause allergic reactions to the consumers. Application of genetic engineer whereas desirable trait is inserted into the host cell could change the genetic makeup of the host cell. This could trigger the allergic reaction of the consumers which normally does not have the allergic. They need to be careful with the ingredients of certain food in order to ensure that they do not trigger the allergic when consuming certain foods.

Besides, food biotechnology increase awareness in the food consumption of the society as they are not really clear about genetically modifies organism (GMO). This has been an issue since the consumers are more concern about the safety of the food that they took. Some of the consumers are more acceptance to GMO food as long as they foods were labelled with the correct information that consumers should know.

 

 

One of the well-known application will be pharmacogenomics. Pharmacogenomics is the study of how the genetic inheritance of an individual affects his/her body's response to drugs. Therefore, the study of the 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:

First, the tailor-made medicines are been developed. Using pharmacogenomics, pharmaceutical companies can create drugs based on the proteins, enzymes, and RNA molecules that are associated with specific genes and diseases. These tailor-made drugs promise not only to maximize therapeutic effects, but also to decrease damage to nearby healthy cells.

Besides, the drug discovery and approval process had been improved. 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.

Better vaccines are been created. Safer vaccines can be designed and produced 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 pathogen at once.

Modern biotechnology can be used to manufacture existing drugs more easily and cheaply. The first genetically-engineered products were medicines designed to combat human diseases. In 1978, Genentech joined a gene for insulin with a plasmid vector and put the resulting gene into a bacterium called Escherichia coli. Insulin, widely used for the treatment of diabetes, was previously extracted from sheep and pigs. It was very expensive and often elicited unwanted allergic responses. The resulting genetically-engineered bacterium enabled the production of vast quantities of human insulin at low cost. Since then, modern biotechnology has made it possible to produce more easily and cheaply the human growth hormones, clotting factors for hemophiliacs, fertility drugs, erythropoietin, and other drugs.

Another application of Biotechnology in medicine field is gene therapy.  Gene therapy is a genetic engineering technique used to cure disease. In its simplest form, it involves the introduction of a good gene at a random location in the genome to aid the cure of a disease that is caused by a mutated gene. The good gene is usually introduced into diseased cells as part of a vector transmitted by a virus that can infect the host cell and deliver the foreign DNA . More advanced forms of gene therapy try to correct the mutation at the original site in the genome, such as is the case with treatment of severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID).

Reference:
Boundless. (2016).  Biotechnology in Medicine. Retrieved from https://www.boundless.com/biology/textbooks/boundless-biology-textbook/biotechnology-and-genomics-17/biotechnology-119/biotechnology-in-medicine-480-11702/

 

In sewage treatment plants, microorganisms are used to remove the more common pollutants from waste water before it is discharged into rivers or the sea. The methods are varies from aerobic, anaerobic and physico-chemical processes in fixed-bed filters, and in bioreactors in which the materials and microbes are held in suspension. To speed up treatment and purification of sewage water, process bioremediation measures are used.

 

 Due to the extensive human activities, the amounts of fertilizers and agricultural chemicals applied to soils and industrial and domestic waste-disposal practices is increasing, causing the soil pollution. Bioremediation method to treat contaminated soil has been considered as a safe, reliable, cost-effective and environment friendly method for degradation of various pollutants. This can be effected in a number of ways, either in situ or ex situ. In situ treatments include adding nutrient solutions, introducing microorganisms and ventilation. Ex situ treatment involves excavating the soil and treating it elsewhere above the ground. On the other hand, bioremediation of land is often cheaper than physical procedures and its products are mostly harmless.

 

Air and water gases can be treated with the aid of biological waste gas purification technology using bioreactors including the bio filters, bio trickling filters, bio scrubbers and membrane bioreactors. When the air containing volatile compound is flowed through the bioreactor, the volatile compound are moved from the gas phase into liquid phase where the microorganisms are grown and remove the compound from the air.

 

Biotechnology also contribute to the environmental detection and monitoring. It allows the scientist to measure the contamination level and submit them to analysis immediately by utilizing the biological detection methods; biosensors and immunoassays. For examples: Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a yeast that was used to detect cyanide in river water while Selenastrum capricornatum is a type of green algae which involves in heavy metal detection. 

Malaysia is one of the luckiest country which a very conducive environment for biotechnology investors. Abundant of natural resources with good infrastructure for research and development and high skilled of human resources related in this field, natural product can be one of potential factor for our country in increasing our economic throughout this bio-industry. Moreover, Malaysia is a gifted country that rich in botany which at least 20% of the estimated 12,000 number of plants possess medicinal or therapeutic properties. Therefore, it such a huge potential for our country to producing some of new natural drug that can be useful not only for us but the whole world.

Other impact of natural product in our society is environment safe and health. Since synthetic product is derived from chemical substance which somehow it can be dangerous or contribute to some of side effect towards our environment and also our health. Therefore, by applying natural product it can save your life and also our environment.

Biotechnology has helped society by improving their quality of lives and meets their daily needs and demands as well as environmental needs. It is a fundamental aim of biotechnology that has been over 10,000 years. However, there are so many concerns arise from the society and eventually could change society despite their benefits as well. 

                A biotechnology crop has contributed a lot to environmental impact. Biotechnology is definitely has it benefits to the environment especially its impact on pesticides use in agriculture. Insect resistant crop is used as alternative pesticides instead of chemical pesticides because insect resistant crops believed has develop more flexible, sustainable and yet a very effective pest in agricultural management proggrammes. Insect resistant crops are basically a product of biotechnology field that has engineered a plant to be resistant to any type of insects. It also believes to increase water usage efficiency, which is now 70% of water has been used for agricultural needs. It also causes an indirect benefit such as drought tolerance. Other than that, biotechnology industry has also contributed to a production of organic herbicide. It becomes a good enabler of agriculture of zero-tillage. Zero- tillage is when a seed is sowed directly into the field without ploughing to remove a seed. This has helped farmers in their everyday tasks. Enough about zero-tillage, organic herbicide can also improve conservation of beneficial soil insects and earthworms. Farmers and other nature lover need not to worry of the fact that biotechnology product could gives harm to living organisms. It also brings an indirect benefit such as increase soil quality, reduce global warming event as carbon dioxide also reduced.

                However, there are also a lot of concerns from society regarding the environment due to the impact of production and activity of biotechnology. For instance, concern of pesticide use and its impact on environment. Early problem such as potato plant that is genetically transformed believed to not having any big impact on insecticide which it should be. Other than that, there is a current problem arise which is when the herbicide is overused, it will cause the resistance weed to evolve. 

There are also concern on pest and virus resistant plant. Referring to weed production, it is undeniably a concern now that engineered plants would become a weed. But great concern than that which is if the engineered plant could become a weed itself or become herbicide tolerant, it would be very difficult to manage to its agricultural setting.

 

Biotechnology is the science which combines biology with technology that is being used rampantly in pharmaceutical sector. This scientific field has proved to be a boon especially in: 

 

a) Manufacturing of vaccines: 

Every pharmaceutical company aims at producing products that can help tackle severe health problems and benefit the society in a massive way. As the population increases, changing in lifestyles and economies around world is facing health problems and diseases that are tough to cure. With biotechnology, the cure for various diseases including cardiovascular disorders, arthritis, Hepatitis B, bone fractures and others are successfully found. 

 

b) Genetic testing: 

Biotechnology has made genetic testing a reality. Such testing has made it possible for medical science to unlock many mysteries of the human body. As examples, genetic testing can be used for forensic tests, determining the sex of to be born child, spotting early symptoms of cancer in individuals and detecting other possible deficiencies that otherwise are hard to detect. The production costs of biotech based products are cheaper and this is a main reason the pharma industry embraced this technology and has made it an indispensable part of its own self. Besides, pharmaceutical sector is service oriented where the safety of the end users has to be given prime importance. Even the minutest of errors in a formulation can lead to mishaps which later cannot be corrected. Pharmacy and biotechnology both have together created path breaking solutions and the future holds even more.

 

In a nutshell, biotechnology has a promising future. Recent advances in bioenergy, bioremediation, synthetic biology, DNA computers, virtual cell, genomics, proteomics, bioinformatics and bio-nanotechnology have made biotechnology even more powerful. In future, biotechnology will have great impact in world economy and a golden tool to solve some of the key global problems like global epidemic, fatal diseases, global warming, rising petroleum fuel crisis and above all poverty.

References:

BIOPHARMACY. (n.d.). Definitions.net. Retrieved March 29, 2017, from http://www.definitions.net/definition/BIOPHARMACY

Biopharmacy, basic terms and history of development. Influencing of the degree of grinding of medicinal matters on the speed of their releasing from medicinal forms. Influencing of nature of auxiliary substances on the process of release of medications from medicinal forms. Retrieved March 29, 2017, from http://intranet.tdmu.edu.ua/data/kafedra/internal/lik_tex/classes_stud/en/pharm/prov_pharm/ptn/Biopharmacy/5/Lesson%201%20.Biopharmacy,%20basic%20terms%20and%20history%20of%20development.htm

 

Ahern, M. (2016). What's the Difference Between Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology? Retrieved March 29, 2017, from https://www.morganmckinley.ie/article/difference-between-pharmaceutical-and-biotechnology

 

Reeve, C. (n.d.). Importance of Biotechnology in Pharmaceutical Industry. Retrieved March 29, 2017, from http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/importance-of-biotechnology-in-pharmaceutical-industry

 

Shrestha, R. (2010). The Importance of Biotechnology in Today’s Time. Retrieved March 29, 2017, from https://raunakms.wordpress.com/2010/06/04/the-importance-of-biotechnology-in-todays-time/ 

These genetically-modified plants have desirable traits such as resistant to diseases and spoilage. One of the examples of food that is genetically modified is the B.t corns. In B.t corns, the gene from Bacillus thuringiensis is incorporated into corn. Bacillus thuringiensis is a naturally occurring soil bacterium which can produce lethal crystal protein that can kills insect larvaes. Hence, by incorporating B.t crystal protein genes into corn, it allows the corns to self-produce its own pesticides against insect larvaes. 

Due to the crop’s resistance to pests, the usage of pesticides can be reduced and hence less chemical will be used. The elimination of the use of pesticides will reduce the cost in maintaining the crops. In addition, the risk of loss of crops due to pests is reduced and this will enable the crops to be harvested in large quantities.

References:
Reece B. J., Lisa A. U., Cain L. M., Wasserman A. S., Minorsky V. P., and  Jackson B. R.. Global Edition Campbell Biology. Ninth ed. San Francisco: Pearson Benjamin Cummings, 2011.467. Print.

Bessin, R. (n.d). B.t-Corn: What it is and How it Works. UK College of Agriculture, Food and Environment. Retrieved from https://entomology.ca.uky.edu/ef130

Animal biotechnology is study on how to use science in modified a living organisms. It is use to produce a products, improve animals and develop microorganisms for specific agricultural uses.

 But, in social consideration that surrounding animal biotechnology are the significance importance. It is slightly true as researchers and developers worries on the future market success of any product related on cloned and genetically engineered animals. This part is clearly skeptical as well as its outright opponent. Those opponents thinks that there is something immoral about the processes of transgenic or cloning. 

Another questions on impact of animals in biotechnology in the society is the needed of genetically engineer animals. Some will wonder if it is done so companies can increase its profits and agricultural production. It is believes that a compelling need should be made for those genetically modified animals and that means we should not use that animals only for our owns and needs.  

Reference: Aboutscience.org. (n.d.). Retrieved March 29, 2017, from http://www.aboutscience.org/topics/animalbiotechnology

Food Industry 

Biotechnology can be defined as technology that uses living organisms or other biological systems in the manufacture of products such as hormones, drugs, biofuel and more. Furthermore, utilization of biotechnology can be seen in medicine, agriculture, industrial, marine and food. I will choose impact of biotechnology to society in food industry aspect.

 Biotechnology is implemented in the food industry to enhance the flavours and colours of the food and also improved enzymes and emulsifiers. Moreover, the food is produced with improved nutritional value to make up for the nutrition that are lacked in the individual’s diet or lost in the food processing. There also more options in the accessing of food safety for human consumption. Farmers can also grow more food on less land by planting genetically modified crops. 

Examples of biotechnology in food industry, pectinase assists in the increasing of the antioxidants quantity and colour of the vegetables and fruit juices. In cheese production, microbial rennet is used instead of rennet’s of animal origin. Moreover, protease enzymes are used in gaining flavours and cheese ripening. 

Genetically modified organism (GMO) is also a technique of biotechnology. This technique can produce organism with the desired trait such as plants with cold tolerance and disease resistance or animals such as cow that yield more milk and tastier meat The advantages of GMO’s are the plants are pest resistance such as Bacillus thuringiensis gene are inserted into the corn which produce a corn that can create its own pesticide. By producing this pest resistant plant, the usage of pesticide and insecticide will decreased as it is harmful to the environment and also human. Another advantage of GMO’s is edible vaccines. It has low risk contamination, safe, cheap and needle free. Example of plants used for edible vaccines are carrot, peanuts, soybean, alfalfa, rice, tomatoes, banana and corn. 

Genetically modified food also increase the nutrition in the food. For instance, genetically modified rice have more vitamin A can reduce the vitamin A deficiency in developing countries. Moreover, genetically modified organisms  can conserve water, soil and energy. 

Apart from the positive impact of biotechnology to society in food industry, there is also negative impact on utilization of biotechnology in food industry. Genetically modified food is when the gene from other food inserted into another to enhance the food to be better. This will causes food allergies among society. For instance, genetically modified soybeans contain similar protein components as nuts which also produce soybeans that contain allergic properties of the nuts. Another negative impact includes unknown effects and antibiotic resistance. 

 

 

Biotechnology is an area of research that concerns with the modification of living organisms in the development of new technologies. The main objective of biotechnology is to improve the quality of the lives of every single living thing on earth. Biotechnology uses applications of biology, chemistry, engineering and information technology in the development of new tools.

There is no doubt that biotechnology has brought great impacts for the society. There are many improvements and technology advancements which have certainly helped in various researches. This can be seen especially in the medical field. A lot of tools and findings developed by the applications of biotechnology have improved the quality of diagnoses and treatments of various diseases.

The applications of biotechnology which focus on medical research are termed as “red biotechnology”. According to Biology Online (n.d.), red biotechnology can be defined as the use of organisms for the improvement of medical processes. It includes the designing of organisms to manufacture pharmaceutical products like antibiotics and vaccines, the engineering of genetic cures through genomic manipulation, and its use in forensics through DNA profiling. Through red biotechnology, new treatments for diseases such as cancer, AIDS and genetic diseases are developed. The new development of treatments for these diseases are able to minimize the side effects to the patients and they are also more cost-effective.

Gene therapy, for instance, is one of the applications of red biotechnology and considered to be very beneficial in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases especially cancer. It is a technique that allows a disorder treatment to be done by modifying the genes of the patient. Among the approaches of gene therapy include replacing a mutated gene that causes disease with a healthy copy of the gene, inactivating, or “knocking out,” a mutated gene that is functioning improperly and introducing a new gene into the body to help fight a disease (US National Institute of Health (NIH), 2017). 

Besides gene therapy, pharmacogenomics is one of the applications of red biotechnology that has brought great impact in the medical field. As the term “pharmacogenomics” suggests, it studies the genetic information of the individual and develops drugs that can be inserted into that particular individual (Chawla, 2011). Thus, this allows a more specific drug to be administered to the patient and risks of hypersensitivity to certain drugs can be avoided. Not only that, pharmacogenomics ensure that the treatment is more effective as it is engineered according to the genetic information of the patient itself.

In a nutshell, biotechnology certainly has brought a great impact to the society especially in the medical world. Through biotechnology, a lot of advancements in medical researches, diagnosis and treatment are developed. This allows many diseases to be treated effectively and potential diseases could be avoided.

BiologyOnline. (n.d.). Red Biotechnology. Retrieved March 27, 2017, from BiologyOnline: http://www.biology-online.org/kb/biology_articles/biotechnology/red_biotechnology.html

Chawla, V. (2011, March 29). Biotechnology In Medicine: Revolutionizing Lives Of People. Retrieved March 29, 2017, from Youth Ki Awaaz: https://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2011/03/biotechnology-in-medicine-revolutionizing-lives-of-people/

US National Institute of Health (NIH). (2017, March 28). What is gene therapy? Retrieved March 30, 2017, from Genetics Home Reference | NIH: US National Library of Medicine: https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/therapy/genetherapy

 

Biotechnology have hugely impacted the food we eat today. Various food we consumed have somewhat been “bettered” than it’s original natural state. Even though this development have positively impact food supply but it can cause unwanted hazard to the environment and even to consumer. 

 

One of most talked about biotechnology effects to society is the genetically modified food(GMF) of crops and farm animals. These GMFs products are made for various reasons like increasing the yield, shelf life, nutritional values, endurance against parasites and diseases and cost reduction. Some people are choosing to avoid this kind of food product and prefer natural one over the fear of bad side effects like developing allergies reaction and toxins. Some plant and animal are made to reproduce more frequently than its usual seasonal cycle.

 

Another impact of biotechnology toward food taken by society is the development of food processing. Food are made to have longer shelf life by adding chemical preserver or by physical means. Some are used to aid production process. Some food are being enhanced to make it more flavourful, colourful and attractive. Some of these additives came from extracts of natural resources while some are synthetically made to resemble the natural one. One of the example is enzyme pectinase is used in juice production to improve juice extraction and clarification.

 

After all, biotechnology generally have greatly impacting the food industry. Various new developments and researches have bring prospers especially to poor, desert or infertile region of the world where food source are relatively scarce. Increasing world population also cause the rise in need of more food supply and nutrition source hence increase in opportunity in this field.

Biotechnology had blurred the line between biology and technology in medical world. Development and impact of biotechnology in medical world had improve, restore and extend human lives. For instance, its hard and time consuming to find suitable donor for an organ transplant, especially for heart donor. One solution for the shortage is creating artificial organs. The main goal of development artificial organs is to keep the patient (serious organ failure) alive until they can receive the real organ.

Nowadays, SynCardia Systems, Inc. had provides patients with a full-functioning artificial heart. SynCardia temporary Total Artificial Heart is the first and only FDA approved Total Artificial Heart in the world. They also had gained FDA approval to conduct a clinical study of the effectiveness of the Total Artificial Heart for permanent use. Implanting the SynCardia Total Artificial Heart had eliminating the source of end-stage biventricular heart failure by replacing both failing heart ventricles and the four heart valves. They also eliminates the uses of pacemakers and defibrillators. 

During the 10 years of pivotal clinical study which led to FDA approval, 75% of all Total Artificial Heart patients were out of bed just after one week of heart implant. Two week later, the patient liver and kidney function had trending to normal and 60% of all patients can walks more than 100 feet. The longest a patient has been supported by the SynCardia Total Artificial Heart was nearly over 4 years of use before receiving a successful donor heart transplant. 

With the advances technology and future mindset, one day, it is possible for patient able to keep alive for long periods of time using artificial hearts.  

Biotechnology can be defined as the manipulation of a biological system to develop or create different products which can help to improve many lives and the environment (Conner et al., 2014). It can be applied in many fields such as medical, food processing, environmental and agricultural field. It is not only restricted for human but can also be developed for animals and plants. Environmental biotechnology in particular is a process of prevention environmental pollution using microorganisms and their products.

Biotechnology can be used to save the environment from pollution in several ways. One of it is through bioprocessing. Bioprocess technology is a specific process where a biological material or a living cell is utilized in an optimal condition to produce desired products. For example, yeast is used in fermentation of crops to produce bioethanol which can be a substitute for petrol to run vehicles (Demirbas & Gupta, 2010). Fuel combustion is one of the major causes of air pollution and global warming as it releases pollutants. Therefore, bioprocessing technology benefits the society by reducing the risk of air pollution. 

Apart from that, in the environmental biotechnology field, there is also a process called bioremediation which utilizes microorganisms and fungi to breakdown or neutralize pollutants and contaminants (Sinha et al., 2009). This process is very useful for cleaning oil spills, contaminated soils and water. Moreover, biotreatment can also be used in solid, water and gaseous treatments such as sewage and wastewater treatment. Microorganisms are commonly used in the secondary stage of sewage treatments to remove dissolved and suspended biological matter. 

It can be concluded that environmental biotechnology benefits the society in many ways as it helps to reduce the risk of air pollution, water pollution and global warming. It helps to provide a better living environment not only for human being but also for animals and plants. 

 

Conner, J., Wuchterl, D., Lopez, M., Minshall, B., Prusti, R., Boclair, D., Peterson, J., & Allen, C. (2014). Chapter 26: The biomanufacturing of biotechnology products, in: Shimasaki, C. (Eds.), Biotechnology Enterpreneuship: Starting, managing, and leading biotech companies. Academic Press, Oklahoma, Pp 351-385. 

Demirbas, A. & Gupta, R. (2010). Gasoline, diesel, and ethanol biofuels from grasses and plants. Cambridge University Press, New York.

Sinha, R. K., Valani, D., Sinha, S., Singh, S., & Herat, Sunil. (2009). Chapter 1 - Bioremediation of contaminated sites: A low-cost nature’s biotechnology for environmental clean up by versatile microbes, plants and earthworms, in: Faerber, T., & Herzog, J. (Eds.), Solid waste management and environmental remediation. Nova Science Publishers, New York, Pp 1-72.

The task of feeding the world’s population is becoming challenging as the population is growing rapidly and food prices are rising.  However, food biotechnology has contributed tremendously in order to help meet this challenge (Food Insight, 2016).  By utilizing the knowledge of plant science, animal science and genetics, food biotechnology has made the production of new products with desirable characteristics possible.  These characteristics include leaner meat, improved flavor and nutritional qualities of food and disease and drought resistance plants (“What is Food Biotechnology?”, n.d.). 

The use of recombinant DNA technology in food production can have many advantages such as the production of more food on less land. This is achieved by reducing the number of crops that are lost to disease and pests (Food Insight, 2016). Other examples include, genes involved in the production of desirable oils from undomesticated plants can be introduced into traditional oil-producing plants so as to produce large quantities of these oils. The introduction of genes conferring drought resistance in the staple crops grown in Third World countries can also help in alleviating famine (Watson et al., 1992). 

As a result, biotechnology will have a big impact in the production of food in large quantity at low prices. This will, in turn, reduce the lack of food seen in Third World countries.

REFERENCE :

Food Insight (2016). Fact Sheet: Benefits of Food Biotechnology. Retrieved March 30, 2017, from http://www.foodinsight.org/articles/fact-sheet-benefits-food-biotechnology

Watson, J. D., Gilman, M., Witkowski, J., & Zoller, M. (1992). Recombinant DNA. New York, NY, United States: Scientific American Books.

What is Food Biotechnology? (n.d.). Retrieved March 30, 2017, from http://ccr.ucdavis.edu/biot/what/index_new.shtml

An example of genetically modified food is Bt corn, potatoes and tomatoes. All of this food is being modified in order to resist pest and disease. Biotechnology in food able to protect the ecosystem and human health. Fewer insecticides will be used and no nutrient run off will happen. Plus, food biotechnology help diminishes greenhouse global emissions. In the term of human health, genetically modified food can increase the nutritional value of food. One of the impacts of biotechnology in food to society is to increase work opportunity. Genetically modified food produce a high-yield and high-quality crop. In order to yield the high amount of crop, lots of workers are needed. And lastly, biotechnology in food can expand the sustainable food supply to meet demands. This can alleviate hunger and poverty that currently happened in the world. Food security is no longer a problem as biotechnology in food can meet the demands and at the same time does not undermine the ability of future generations. 

Biotechnology in food can reduce food hunger and poverty in the future. The third world countries will no longer struggle in order to get food supply and there will be no more death because of hunger.

First of all we need to say there almost no man or woman, who never eat genetic modified food. Most of GMO products are modified to increase production. Such kind of food we eat daily. According to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations certain GMO food are highly nutritious by vitamins and minerals. This helps our society to overcome vitamins and mineral deficiency, which is serious problem especially in poor countries. Beside this GMO is usually cheaper than usual food and helps us save money. Society always get concern about negative impact, which humanity does toward our planet. However food biotechnology allow us to reduce this negative impact. Owing to high productivity, GMO allows us to reduce deforestation. It also means that GMO reduce global warming. Beside this, GMO product may not need pesticides and herbicides. All of the factors means that GMO protect our environment. For example, enviro pig, produce less phosphorus in its excrement and by this reason are more friendly to environment than usual pig.  

However there are also some concerns about GMO. One of the society’s concerns is its safety. GMO may cause allergic reactions. Some of the GMO produce antibiotics in order to protect themselves from diseases. This however may lead to antibiotic resistance in microorganisms and antibiotic inefficiency in human. There is also risk that GMO may cause new diseases, which are not exist yet. Another society concern is economic concern. Because of GMO made by companies, the rights of its cultivation belong to them. This may lead to certain price manipulation and monopolization. So certain companies may manipulate world economic, which may have very negative impact on society. 

As you can see food biotechnology has its positive and negative sides toward society. On the one hand it may give big advantages in the form of high nutritious, cheap price, reduction of negative impact on environment. However on the other hand it also may cause certain disease and lead to word economic manipulation. By this reason it is our responsibility how we are going to develop food biotechnology.  

Reference:27 Big Advantages and Disadvantages of Genetically Modified Foods. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://connectusfund.org/27-big-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-genetically-modified-foods

Focusing on drug discoveries, the alternative drug discovery methods may not be able fully to deliver many lead compound in key therapeutic areas such as anti-infective, metabolic and immunosuppression causing a renewed interest in natural product research for drug discovery. The therapeutic areas of infectious diseases and oncology have benefited from numerous drug classes derived from the natural form and templates for synthetic modification. In between 2000 to 2010, the have been an article that reported about 40 new drugs launch on the market originate from terrestrial microorganisms, terrestrial plants, marine organisms and terrestrial vertebrates and invertebrates. This article shows that natural products and natural product-derived compounds are being presently evaluated in clinical trials or are in the registration highlighting their mechanism action. A huge number of natural product compounds in various stages of clinical development highlighting the existing viability and significances of the use of the natural products as sources of new drugs candidates. However, improvements in natural products research need to be competitive with other drug discovery methods to be able to keep the pace with the ongoing changes in the modern drug discovery process. 

 

Furthermore, HGP is also important as it uses information from DNA to improve the present medical treatments in order to treat human diseases (Akudo, 2001). Numerous medical advances from HGP have benefited the society, for an instance, the researchers’ ability to predict and prevent diseases. Doctors will be able to diagnose people with possibility to suffer from a particular disease and patients can have few options on his medical treatment or lifestyle changes. This is due to the possibility to determine the prognosis and diagnosis of diseases through genetic testing or screening for specific mutations.

 

On the other hand, genomic studies also helped in understanding the role played by the genetic make-up of an individual, in how well a medicine works and the possible side effects from consuming the prescribed medicine. By understanding the influence of genes towards an individual’s responsiveness to drugs, personalised medicine can now be developed (West et al, 2006). Suitable type of medicine with appropriate dosages can also be determined by looking at the genetic profile of a patient, based on variations in metabolism of drugs. This will help to prevent an individual from developing adverse reactions due to overdose of drugs.

 

Akudo, E. (2001). Biology 103: Human Genome Project. Retrieved on February 24, 2017 from http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/biology/b103/f01/

 

National Human Genome Research Institute (2015). All About The Human Genome Project (HGP). Retrieved on March 21, 2017 from https://www.genome.gov/10001772/all-about-the--human-genome-project-hgp/

 

West, M., Ginsburg, G. S., Huang, A. and Nevins, J. (2006). Embracing the complexity of genomic data for personalized medicine. Genome Research. 16: 559–566.

Modern biotechnology refers to techniques used in order to create desired specific traits in plants, animals or microorganisms by utilizing the genetic knowledge. In food industry, the most common technique used is Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO), where the DNA composition of the organisms has been altered or modified through genetic engineering. In genetically modified food according to National Library of Medicine (NLM), foreign genes from other plants or animals had been inserted into their genetic codes to increase the flavour, nutrition and resistance to diseases and droughts.

The used of GMO technology has been in large-scale in agricultural crops where most of the crops have been genetically engineered in order to build resistance towards pests and adverse weather such as droughts. The incorporation of gene for toxin production found in Bacillus thuriengiensis (Bt) is one of the widely used method in introducing insect resistance to plants according to World Health Organization (WHO). Crops that are modified with Bt gene have been proven to be insect-resistant, which in turn reduce the need for wide-scale-spraying of synthetic pesticides that posed harm towards the environment due to its chemical composition.

The introduction of GM crops also increased the yield which can reduce the anxiety on the food security problems that arises due to the increasing human population. Even though genetically modified food has been assured by the FDA to be safe for consuming, there are still some doubts in the usage of GMO for production of food. One of the major reasons is the introduction of foreign gene into the food product. The consumption of these foods can cause allergic reaction and also damage to the organ studied in lab animals according to Institute for Responsible Technology, a group of anti-GMO activists. 

One of the impact biotechnology in the medical field is new reproductive technology. On of example of new reproductive technology is genetic therapy. This therapy currently aiming removal of the causes of disabilities by splicing, adding, and removal of genetic materials in the embryonic stages of development. The development technique of in vitro fertilization (IVF) have made this therapy seem a possible for the next step. IVF allows for the cultivation of human life in the laboratory and, when a human embryo or gamete is outside the body, we can intervention in its structure. This genetic manipulation it is possible to correct inherited disease or conditions such as thalassemia, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, Huntington’s chorea, haemophilia and others.

Biotechnology also made diagnostic of diseases easier. Analysis such as microarray, qPCR, sequencing, and bioinformatics made this possible. Biotechnology helps to study the disease in the molecular level. With this, more efficient medicine can be produce for specific disease and based on the individual diet, genotype, epigenetics and metabolism. Side effect form the medicine can be reduced or can be removed.

 

More powerful medicine had been invented. These powerful drugs can be develop targeting specific health problem that will maximize therapeutic effects but decrease damage to the nearby healthy cells. Safer drugs the first time also benefits of biotechnology. Based on the all the researchers that had been conducted, doctor could have an idea which drug to use based on a genetic profile versus trial and error decreasing the likelihood to adverse reactions. More accurate methods in determining the drugs dosage also one of the biotechnology impact. Instead of dosages being based on body weight and age, it would be based on a individual’s genetics. This would decrease the likelihood of an overdose.

 

The gene test is carried out under the genomics and proteomics sector. Gene test are used to diagnose and confirm diseases, and it can be carried out on asymptomatic individuals. Besides, it could provide the medical prognosis for patients. The risk of future diseases in healthy individuals and their progeny could also be predicted.

Currently, the gene tests identify mutations related to rare genetic disorders that follow Mendelian inheritance patterns. Some of the examples include Huntington’s disease, cystic fibrosis and sickle cell anaemia. Mutations of more complex conditions like ovarian and colon cancer can be detected by these tests. The gene tests are usually carried out in order to make risk estimates in presymptomatic individuals with a family history of the disorder.

    One of the positive impacts of the gene test is that the physicians and patients could manage the disease more effectively by the information provided. However, there is a limitation to it, as the tests might not detect every mutation associated with a particular condition because many are yet to be discovered. Besides, the mutations detected may show diverse risks to various people and population.

The negative impacts of genes tests are regarding the issues of privacy and confidentiality of genetic information. This is because the knowledge about the risk of potential future disease could produce significant emotional and psychological impacts to the community. Moreover, genetic tests will reveal genetic information of individuals and their families, and this might affect family dynamics. Lastly, the test results could pose risks for population groups if they lead to group stigmatization.  

Genetic engineering is used to increase plant productivity and product quality. Food biotech is the application where scientist improves the production of plants, animals and microorganism to produce high quality, quantity and safety of food. The benefit of food biotech is the desirable traits can be selected from the plant and introduced to another in order to produce the desire plants such as pest resistant and increase nutritional value of food. This genetic engineering technique is better than conventional breeding that is time consuming and the result is not guaranteed. 

Scientists have introduced Genetically Modify Organism (GMO) where the organism acquired new gene which added from other organisms to improve the quality and quantity of the crop or food produced in a more efficient way which also helps farmer and merchants in managing their crops and sources. The crops can be modified to withstand extreme and fluctuate weather so subsequently they will be in a good quality and sufficient yields even under a poor or severe weather condition. Besides that, it is easier to grow it.

The impacts of biotechnology have contribute to more production of food in good quality with high nutrients value and value-added. Biotechnology also improve the production of food via the used of enzyme and fermentation. Genes for many of the important food industry enzymes have been cloned and gene transfer systems that permit introduction and expression in generally recognized as safe (GRAS) organisms have been developed.

The modern biotechnology helps in reducing the used of agrochemicals too since some of the agrochemicals are costly. It also can imply fewer residues in final product towards the environment. Besides, with this technology, it can improve the method and time for food harvesting. Hence, the plants will have more uniform characteristics, grow at the same speed and ripen at the same time which not only improves the storage but also the food quality.

Nevertheless, there is increasing concerns on the use of genetic engineering for plant improvement and also GMO to human health and environment for food safety as well as food security.

Biotechnology field is considered one of the fastest moving of science today. It’s covered a wide area of application including medicine, bio-pharmacy, agriculture and others via combination knowledge between biology and technology. As a result, substantial improvements in human and health care as well as the production of transgenic plants and animals have occurred continuously in coming years. Regarding to medical field, biotechnology is able to interpret genetic makeup of species, genetic basis of heritable diseases besides invention of technology to construct and fix mutant genes. In addition, biotechnology also provides method to directly treat on diseases such as gene therapy and enzyme therapy or produces antibiotic such as penicillin to defend from bacteria or virus attack. 

For instance, in the era of science and technology, advancement of biotechnology has discovered several high-throughput tools to make it possible in diagnosis of infectious diseases no matter it is occurred from pathogen transmission or inherit. Such example including Enzymes linked Immuno-sorbant Assay (ELISA), PCR based technique and etc. Generally, when the diagnosis test have been constructed, researchers are proceed to identify suitable treatment of the disease. One of the example of modern biotechnology approach, enzyme therapy is now widely applied as pharmaceutical product. This concept is basically explained on the unique enzymes characteristic like higher affinity and specificity in binding to the targeted mutant protein. Deficiency or non-functioning of the protein in the body which result from the inactivation of virus will leads to several diseases to happen. For example, in 1990, Adagen®, form of bovine adenosine deaminase (ADA) performed to treated with polyethylene glycol (PEG) was the first found successful enzyme therapy for inherited disease such as severe combined immunodeficiency disease (SCID) (Vellard, 2003).  This was a kind of disease that produced during the extremely serious insufficient of ADA protein. The enzyme ADA was function by cleaving the excess adenosine present in blood circulation of patients and this results in reducing toxicity to the immune system of the elevated adenosine levels (Vellard, 2003). With the first successful application of enzyme therapy, the particular approach was later expanded to others relevant diseases.

Despite of therapy application, biotechnology was also common in medical diagnosis on cancer research. Aetiology of cancer disease can be categories into various options including gene mutation, inheritance, acute hypertension as well as viral infection. Hence, the effective diagnosis of the cancer is crucial in order to develop better treatment and prevention regimens. More recently, researchers are emphasized on predictive molecular signatures likes biomarker which the presence of indicator can indicate the risk or progression of cancer.  Under CREATE Health’s programme, it was proven that the further optimization on better predictive factors for breast cancer are necessary for deciding on which specific type of chemotherapy and drug have the potential to ensure better targeted treatment of the disease (Borrebaeck, CREATE Health). A better chemotherapy was required to be studied and replaced on previous treatment of cancer disease. This is due to previously there was only 10 per cent of breast cancer patients had obtained the benefit from the treatment (Borrebaeck, CREATE Health). Therefore, the development of biotechnology tools by scientists such as Biopsy, CT Scan have played an important role in diagnosis of different specific cancer cell type (National Cancer Institute, 2015). With the abundant of the laboratory equipment, they are able to easily study on the aetiology and epidemiology of the particular disease which now is important for maintaining the level of healthcare of population. 

In conclusion, the development of biotechnology over past ten years have allowed production factory to manufacture safer, guarantee medicine with high efficiency treat on both rare and common diseases. In my opinion, it is important to concern on the factors of diseases spreading around the world or even the appearance of new strain as to make sure the public health is not threaten. 

Reference 

Borrebaeck, C. (e.d.). Cancer: how biotechnology is benefitting the patient. Retrieved from http://www.createhealth.lth.se/fileadmin/create_health/Pdf_publikationer/Create_Health.pdf

National Cancer Institute. (2015). Diagnosis. Retrieved from https://www.cancer.gov/about-

cancer/diagnosis-staging/diagnosis

 

Vellard, M. (2003). The enzyme as drug: application of enzymes as pharmaceuticals. Current 

Opinion in Biotechnology, 14, 444-450. 

Genetically-modified Organisms (GMOs) or GM foods is most commonly used to refer to crop plants created for human or animal consumption using the latest molecular biology techniques. Today, we are surrounded by GMO product. It gives advantage and disadvantage to the society.

Advantage

1.       The production of food product has increase, thus large part of the world population can be fed.

2.       GM in crop can increase yield in short period of time. 

3.       In agricultural, by using GM crop, the used of pesticide and insecticide is no longer being used as the gene inserted in the plant will help in against various pest. 

Disadvantage

1.       Society believe that, consumption of GM food, may cause cancer because of its hazardous effect

2.       Destruction of floral and fauna because of changes of unnecessary traits to plant through cross pollination which may cause harm to human health.

3.       Human Immune system may not accept the desire gene that is inserted into the food.

4.       Increase in antibiotic resistance disease. 

•We are able to understand the world that we live in on a microscopic level.

1. It changes the quality of life in our world.
- Pros : 
•Industrial Biotechnology can help generate a new “greener”      economy with countless new jobs.  

•May solve world food shortage (agriculture and livestock)

•Helps with discovery of new medicines

•Solving crimes with DNA and forensic testing

-Cons : 
•There are safety and ethical debates 

–How far do we draw the line?

–“Perfect” babies and cloning

–Accidental immunity of pests, weeds, viruses, and bacteria

–Engineering even more foods

–Biological warfare