Biotechnology Flashcards
What are the main areas of biotechnology?
Health care and medical processes
Agriculture
Industry
Food science
What is biotechnology?
The industrial use of living organisms to produce foods, drugs or other useful products.
Biotechnology in Medical processes
Production of drugs from microorganisms.
Pharming (geneticaly modifying animals to produce medicines.
Gene therapy to treat some disorders.
Biotechnology in agriculture
Micripropagation of plants and the development of geneticaly modified crops.
Biotechnology in industry.
Genetically modify organisms to produce enzymes to catalyse reactions for the production of specific products.
Biotechnology in food science.
Microorganisms used to produce cheese, yoghurt or beer.
The development of foods with improved taste, nutrition and texture.
Advantages of using microorganisms in biotechnology.
Rapid growth rate in favourable conditions.
Most proteins produced are extracellular so can be harvested easily.
Simple genetics for easy manipulation.
Grow at low temperatures compared to chemical engineering.
Purer products.
Growth non climate dependent.
Can be grown on a cheap medium.
No ethical concerns.
Why use aseptic technique?
To prevent infection.
Prevent environmental contamination.
Prevent contamination of specimen!
Aseptic procedure.
Wash hands with antibacterial soap, to prevent hands contaminating culture.
Sterilise working area by burning ethanol on the desk.
Flame sterilise necks of bottles and glasses to prevent cross-contamination.
Work within 50cm of flame ( convection currents prevent bacteria from landing on plates).
Bacterial growth curve.
Lag phase,
Log phase,
Stationary phase,
Death phase.
Lag phase.
Bacteria acclimatising to the environment.
Synthesising new cell components,
Taking in water,
Synthesising enzymes.
Log phase.
Population doubles with every generation,
No competition for food or space,
Growth not limited,
Dependent on time taken to reproduce.
Stationary phase.
Cell division slows due to limiting factors:
CO2,
Build up of waste,
Food accessibility
Death rate increases until equal to new cell division.
Death phase.
Death rate greater than cell division
Increased levels of toxic waste products,
Lack of food,
In a closed system all microbes will eventually die.
Fermentation definition.
The culturing of organisms in fermentation tanks. The substances generated by the growth of the culture are separated and purified to produce useful products.
