Although the term biotechnology can be traced to 1919 when it was coined by Karl Ereky, a Hungarian engineer, the roots of biotechnology have been in existence for possibly the past 6,000 years. Of course, the original practitioners did not know that the tasks that they were performing fall under the modern day scope of biotechnology.
Biotechnology is defined as any technique that uses living organisms or their parts to make or modify products, to improve plants and animals, or to develop micro-organisms for specific uses. By dint of this definition, biotechnology is not new, as man has been manipulating living things to solve problems and improve his way of life for millennia. It began with the concentration on the production of food, when primitive men became domesticated enough to selectively breed plants and animals to improve particular traits such as yield, disease resistance and hardiness. The practice of crop rotation was implemented to maximise crop fertility. Fermentation was used to make wine and beer, and yeast to create food products including breads and cheeses.
By the late 18th century and the early 19th century, biotechnology brought about tremendous changes. They included the advent of vaccinations with development of the first rabies vaccine in 1883, crop rotation involving leguminous crops to increase yield and land use, and the introduction of processed animal feed and inorganic fertilisers. The end of the century was a milestone for biology with the discovery of micro-organisms, Gregor Mendel's pioneering work on plant genetics, and the establishment of institutes by Koch, Pasteur and Lister, for investigating fermentation and other microbial processes.
The dawn of the 20th century also brought about great scientific endeavours, from the use of bacteria to treat sewage to the discovery of the first cancer-causing virus in 1911. Biotechnology at this time also began to bring industry and agriculture together and during World War I, fermentation processes were developed that produced acetone from starch and paint solvents for the rapidly growing automobile industry. World War II brought the manufacture of penicillin. It forever changed man's ongoing battle with bacterial infection and other microbes. In addition to producing medicines, the early modern biotechnology industry also focussed upon the utilisation of enzymes. Popular and successful applications involved the use of enzymes for producing sweeteners for use in detergents and textile processing.
By the early 1940s, the term genetic engineering had been coined and was being used by scientists and microbiologists. The discovery of the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA, was a pivotal event in the modern biotechnology revolution as it led to a further understanding of the chemical basis of a cell. In March 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick published a manuscript describing the three-dimensional structure of the double helix of DNA. Until then, the mystery of heredity and the physical mechanism by which replication of genetic material took place in a cell was unknown. The double helix structure gave scientists an insight of how each strand of DNA is replicated and opened new vistas of biological and biochemical research.
Within recent times the term biotechnology has, to the general public, become synonymous with genetic engineering. Genetic engineering encompasses recombinant DNA technology, genetic modification, gene technology and/or gene manipulation. The ability to manipulate living organisms at the genetic level is one of the principal tools of modern biotechnology. Although the aim of traditional biotechnology, such as selective breeding, was to develop new traits or enhance existing functions, new biotechnology (or genetic engineering) allows sophisticated manipulation of the genes in plants and animals which encode for particular characteristics in a more direct, precise manner.
The umbrella of modern biotechnology, however, encompasses a broad array of both traditional and new technologies in a number of industrial, agricultural, healthcare and environmental sectors. The everyday use of many biotech products, such as enzymes utilised for the production of high fructose corn syrup - used as a sweetener in almost every soft drink - and drugs such as insulin produced by micro-organisms will ensure the prosperity of the industry the future.
Proponents of biotechnology believe that the prospects for new developments hold great promise - from corn that can survive flooding, to bananas that can produce a vaccine for hepatitis B, to gene therapy, fixing defective genes in humans - and will open up an entirely new avenue in the development of man.
There are however, some scientists who are sceptical about genetically modified (GM) crops and are lobbying for a GM free world. In support of their case, they assert that GM crops have failed to deliver the promised benefits and that the food safety of genetically modified organisms GMOs are still unproven. To find out more on why they believe that GM crops are not a viable option for a sustainable future, read their full report entitled "The Case for a GM Free Sustainable World" on the web site www.indsp.org.
