Basics and Overviews Flashcards
What is Biology?
Biology, also referred to as the biological sciences, is the study of living organisms utilizing the scientific method. Biologists study the structure, function, growth, origin, evolution and distribution of living organisms.
It classifies and describes organisms, their functions, how species come into existence, and the interactions they have with each other and with the natural environment.
Biochemistry: examines the fundamental chemistry of life
Botany: the study of plants, including agriculture
Cellular biology: the study of the basic cellular units of living things
Ecology: the study of how organisms interact with their environment
Evolutionary biology: the study of the origins and changes in the diversity of life over time
Genetics: the study of heredity
Molecular biology: studies the complex interactions of systems of biological molecules
Physiology: examines the physical and chemical functions of the tissues and organ systems of an organism
Zoology: the study of animals, including animal behavior
How is biology studied?
Observations Questioning Hyposthesis Testing Explanation Theory
What is Basic Science?
The goal of basic science is to understand how things work—whether it is a single cell, an organism made of trillions of cells, or a whole ecosystem. Scientists working on basic science questions are simply looking to increase human knowledge of nature and the world around us. The knowledge obtained through the study of the subspecialties of the life sciences is mostly basic science.
Basic science is the source of most scientific theories. For example, a scientist that tries to figure out how the body makes cholesterol, or what causes a particular disease, is performing basic science. This is also known as basic research. Additional examples of basic research would be investigating how glucose is turned into cellular energy or determining how elevated blood glucose levels can be harmful. The study of the cell (cell biology), the study of inheritance (genetics), the study of molecules (molecular biology), the study of microorganisms and viruses (microbiology and virology), the study of tissues and organs (physiology) are all types of basic research, and have all generated lots of information that is applied to humans and human health.
What is Applied Science?
Applied science is using scientific discoveries, such as those from basic research, to solve practical problems. For example, medicine, and all that is known about how to treat patients, is applied science based on basic research (Figure below). A doctor administering a drug to lower a person’s cholesterol is an example of applied science. Applied science also creates new technologies based on basic science. For example, designing windmills to capture wind energy is applied science (Figure below). This technology relies, however, on basic science. Studies of wind patterns and bird migration routes help determine the best placement for the windmills.
What is Biotechnology?
Biotechnology is a broad area of Biology and the technology that utilizes biological systems, living organisms or parts of this to develop or create different products./ “any technological application that uses biological systems, living organisms, or derivatives thereof, to make or modify products or processes for specific use. For thousands of years, humankind has used biotechnology in agriculture, food production,environment and medicine. Coined in 1919 by Hungarian engineer Károly Ereky.
With the development of genetic engineering in the 1970s, research in biotechnology (and other related areas such as medicine, biology etc.) developed rapidly because of the new possibility to make changes in the organisms’ genetic material (DNA). In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, biotechnology has expanded to include new and diverse sciences such as genomics, recombinant gene techniques, applied immunology, and development of pharmaceutical therapies and diagnostic tests. Today, biotechnology covers many different disciplines (eg. genetics, biochemistry, molecular biology, etc.). New technologies and products are developed every year within the areas of eg. medicine (development of new medicines and therapies), agriculture (development of genetically modified plants, biofuels, biological treatment) or industrial biotechnology (production of chemicals, paper, textiles and food).
How does biotechnology make life better?
Biotechnology has applications in four major industrial areas, including health care (medical), crop production and agriculture, non-food (industrial) uses of crops and other products (e.g. biodegradable plastics, vegetable oil, biofuels, and environmental uses).For example, one application of biotechnology is the directed use of microorganisms for the manufacture of organic products (examples include beer and milk products). Another example is using naturally present bacteria by the mining industry in bioleaching. Biotechnology is also used to recycle, treat waste, clean up sites contaminated by industrial activities (bioremediation), and also to produce biological weapons.
Health
Biotechnology heals the world by utilizing nature’s own toolbox and using our own genetic makeup to heal and guide lines of research by reducing rates of infectious disease, saving millions of children’s lives changing the odds of serious, life-threatening conditions affecting millions around the world, tailoring treatments to individuals to minimize health risks and side effects, creating more precise tools for disease detection, and combating serious illnesses and everyday threats confronting the developing world.
Energy
Biotechnology uses biological processes such as fermentation and harnesses biocatalysts such as enzymes, yeast, and other microbes to become microscopic manufacturing plants. Biotechnology fuels the world by streamlining the steps in chemical manufacturing processes by 80% or more, lowering the temperature for cleaning clothes and potentially saving $4.1 billion annually, improving manufacturing process efficiency to save 50% or more on operating costs, reducing use of and reliance on petrochemicals, using biofuels to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 52% or more, decreasing water usage and waste generation, and tapping into the full potential of traditional biomass waste products.
Agriculture
Biotechnology improves crop insect resistance, enhances crop herbicide tolerance and facilitates the use of more environmentally sustainable farming practices. Biotechnology feeds the world by generating higher crop yields with fewer inputs, lowering volumes of agricultural chemicals required by crops-limiting the run-off of these products into the environment, using biotech crops that need fewer applications of pesticides and that allow farmers to reduce tilling farmland, developing crops with enhanced nutrition profiles that solve vitamin and nutrient deficiencies, producing foods free of allergens and toxins such as mycotoxin, and improving food and crop oil content to help improve cardiovascular health.
More Technical and all encompassing definitions of Biotechnology
The wide concept of “biotech” or “biotechnology” encompasses a wide range of procedures for modifying living organisms according to human purposes, going back to domestication of animals, cultivation of the plants, and “improvements” to these through breeding programs that employ artificial selection and hybridization. Modern usage also includes genetic engineering as well as cell and tissue culture technologies. Per the European Federation of Biotechnology, biotechnology is the integration of natural science and organisms, cells, parts thereof, and molecular analogues for products and services.Biotechnology is based on the basic biological sciences (e.g. molecular biology, biochemistry, cell biology, embryology, genetics, microbiology) and conversely provides methods to support and perform basic research in biology.
Biotechnology is the research and development in the laboratory using bioinformatics for exploration, extraction, exploitation and production from any living organisms and any source of biomass by means of biochemical engineering where high value-added products could be planned (reproduced by biosynthesis, for example), forecasted, formulated, developed, manufactured, and marketed for the purpose of sustainable operations (for the return from bottomless initial investment on R & D) and gaining durable patents rights (for exclusives rights for sales, and prior to this to receive national and international approval from the results on animal experiment and human experiment, especially on the pharmaceutical branch of biotechnology to prevent any undetected side-effects or safety concerns by using the products). The utilization of biological processes, organisms or systems to produce products that are anticipated to improve human lives is termed biotechnology.
Historical Biotechnology
Agriculture has been theorized to have become the dominant way of producing food since the Neolithic Revolution. Through early biotechnology, the earliest farmers selected and bred the best suited crops, having the highest yields, to produce enough food to support a growing population. As crops and fields became increasingly large and difficult to maintain, it was discovered that specific organisms and their by-products could effectively fertilize, restore nitrogen, and control pests. Throughout the history of agriculture, farmers have inadvertently altered the genetics of their crops through introducing them to new environments and breeding them with other plants — one of the first forms of biotechnology.
These processes also were included in early fermentation of beer.These processes were introduced in early Mesopotamia, Egypt, China and India, and still use the same basic biological methods. In brewing, malted grains (containing enzymes) convert starch from grains into sugar and then adding specific yeasts to produce beer. In this process, carbohydrates in the grains broke down into alcohols, such as ethanol. Later, other cultures produced the process of lactic acid fermentation, which produced other preserved foods, such as soy sauce. Fermentation was also used in this time period to produce leavened bread. Although the process of fermentation was not fully understood until Louis Pasteur’s work in 1857, it is still the first use of biotechnology to convert a food source into another form.
In the early twentieth century scientists gained a greater understanding of microbiology and explored ways of manufacturing specific products. In 1917, Chaim Weizmann first used a pure microbiological culture in an industrial process, that of manufacturing corn starch using Clostridium acetobutylicum, to produce acetone, which the United Kingdom desperately needed to manufacture explosives during World War I.
Biotechnology has also led to the development of antibiotics. In 1928, Alexander Fleming discovered the mold Penicillium. His work led to the purification of the antibiotic compound formed by the mold by Howard Florey, Ernst Boris Chain and Norman Heatley – to form what we today know as penicillin. In 1940, penicillin became available for medicinal use to treat bacterial infections in humans.
Branches of Biotechnology
Bioinformatics (also called “gold biotechnology”) is an interdisciplinary field that addresses biological problems using computational techniques, and makes the rapid organization as well as analysis of biological data possible. The field may also be referred to as computational biology, and can be defined as, “conceptualizing biology in terms of molecules and then applying informatics techniques to understand and organize the information associated with these molecules, on a large scale.” Bioinformatics plays a key role in various areas, such as functional genomics, structural genomics, and proteomics, and forms a key component in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical sector.
Blue biotechnology is based on the exploitation of sea resources to create products and industrial applications. This branch of biotechnology is the most used for the industries of refining and combustion principally on the production of bio-oils with photosynthetic micro-algae.
Green biotechnology is biotechnology applied to agricultural processes. An example would be the selection and domestication of plants via micropropagation. Another example is the designing of transgenic plants to grow under specific environments in the presence (or absence) of chemicals. One hope is that green biotechnology might produce more environmentally friendly solutions than traditional industrial agriculture. An example of this is the engineering of a plant to express a pesticide, thereby ending the need of external application of pesticides. An example of this would be Bt corn. Whether or not green biotechnology products such as this are ultimately more environmentally friendly is a topic of considerable debate. It is commonly considered as the next phase of green revolution, which can be seen as a platform to eradicate world hunger by using technologies which enable the production of more fertile and resistant, towards biotic and abiotic stress, plants and ensures application of environmentally friendly fertilizers and the use of biopesticides, it is mainly focused on the development of agriculture.On the other hand, some of the uses of green biotechnology involve microorganisms to clean and reduce waste.
Red biotechnology is the use of biotechnology in the medical and pharmaceutical industries, and health preservation.This branch involves the production of vaccines and antibiotics, regenerative therapies, creation of artificial organs and new diagnostics of diseases.As well as the development of hormones, stem cells, antibodies, siRNA and diagnostic tests.
White biotechnology, also known as industrial biotechnology, is biotechnology applied to industrial processes. An example is the designing of an organism to produce a useful chemical. Another example is the using of enzymes as industrial catalysts to either produce valuable chemicals or destroy hazardous/polluting chemicals. White biotechnology tends to consume less in resources than traditional processes used to produce industrial goods.
“Yellow biotechnology” refers to the use of biotechnology in food production, for example in making wine, cheese, and beer by fermentation.It has also been used to refer to biotechnology applied to insects. This includes biotechnology-based approaches for the control of harmful insects, the characterisation and utilisation of active ingredients or genes of insects for research, or application in agriculture and medicine and various other approaches.
Gray biotechnology is dedicated to environmental applications, and focused on the maintenance of biodiversity and the remotion of pollutants.
Brown biotechnology is related to the management of arid lands and deserts. One application is the creation of enhanced seeds that resist extreme environmental conditions of arid regions, which is related to the innovation, creation of agriculture techniques and management of resources.
Violet biotechnology is related to law, ethical and philosophical issues around biotechnology.[26]
Dark biotechnology is the color associated with bioterrorism or biological weapons and biowarfare which uses microorganisms, and toxins to cause diseases and death in humans, livestock and crops.
