THE IMPORTANCE OF BIOTECHNOLOGY TO LIVING ORGANISMS.

According to the OECD definition, biotechnology is: “The application of science and technology to living organisms, as well as parts, products and models thereof, to alter living or non-living materials for the production of knowledge, goods and services.”  Simply put, it is a technology that is based on biology, which uses living organisms to make innovative products that improve our lives. Our industry works in healthcare, agriculture and industry to meet life’s greatest needs in a carefully regulated way.

Biotechnology has been used for more than 6,000 years for lots of interesting and practical purposes: making food such as bread and cheese, preserving dairy products and fermenting beer.  Although we do not always realise it, biotechnology is a huge part of our everyday lives, from the clothes we wear and how we wash them, the food we eat and the sources it comes from, the medicine we use to keep us healthy and even the fuel we use to take us where we need to go, biotech already plays, and must continue to play, an invaluable role in meeting our needs.  No other industry is better placed to enhance quality of life and respond to society’s ‘Grand Challenges’ of tackling an ageing and ever increasing population, healthcare choice and affordability, resource efficiency, food security, climate change and energy shortages.

From new drugs that address our medical needs and fight epidemics and rare diseases, to industrial processes that use renewable feedstock instead of crude oil to lower the impact on the environment and crops that are able to grow in harsh climatic conditions and ensure safe and affordable food, biotech can and will pay economic, social and environmental dividends.

All of these bold technologies, and those that are still in the pipeline, promise a brighter future for Europe and the world.  But for this to happen, the industry requires sounds policy decisions that support innovation and risk–taking as well as a public that is well informed about how biotech is creating a healthier, greener, more productive and more sustainable economy.Healthcare biotech is already benefiting more than 350 million patients around the world through the use of biotech medicine to treat and prevent every day and chronic illnesses including heart attacks, stroke, multiple sclerosis, breast cancer, cystic fibrosis, leukaemia, diabetes, hepatitis and other rare or infectious diseases.Healthcare biotech enables the development of therapies for rare diseases that are often debilitating and life threatening and that effect 20 to 30 million Europeans and their families.Healthcare biotech is estimated to account for more than 20% of all marketed medicines and it is estimated that by 2015, biotech. Healthcare biotech increases the effectiveness and safety of treatments as well as reducing the use of ineffective treatments and adverse reactions through its approach on Personalized Medicine that works to diagnose what one patient’s problems are precisely and then work to better adapt the healthcare solutions to suit their specific needs. Healthcare biotech comprises more than 1700 companies and a market worth more than €17 billion in Europe alone. Healthcare biotech creates jobs. Between 200 and 2008, employment in all departments of companies working on the development of orphan drugs for rare disease patients in the EU more than doubled, showing an increase of 158% according to the Office of Health Economics, UK.

Industrial biotech uses enzymes and micro-organisms to make products which improve the effectiveness of detergents so that clothes can be washed at lower temperatures and the production of paper and pulp, food, clothing, chemicals and bioenergy is done in a more environmentally efficient way using less energy, less water and producing less waste. Industrial biotech transforms agricultural products and organic waste into other substances with the aim of substituting the need for crude oil as a starting material to warming. Industrial biotech can save energy in production processes and lead to significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. WWF estimates a reduction of between 1 billion and 2.5 billion tonnes of C02 equivalent per year by 2030.Industrial biotech offers an alternative and safer form of global energy instead of diminishing and volatile fossil fuels. Industrial biotech is an industry in which Europe is a world leader. Europe produces about 75% of the world’s enzymes. Industrial biotech is worth nearly €2 trillion and provides approximately 22 million jobs in Europe alone across sectors as diverse as agriculture, forestry, fisheries, food, chemicals and biofuels.

Agricultural biotech can increase yields by 6%-30% on the same amount of land, helping to protect biodiversity and wildlife. Agricultural biotech offers built-in protection against insect damage, resulting in a decrease in pesticide spraying. Agricultural biotech helps reduce fuel use and C02 emissions by requiring less tillage and helps farmers grow more food, reliably, in harsher climatic conditions.  In 2009, this was equivalent to removing 17.7 billion kg of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or equal to removing 7.8 million cars from the road for one year. Agricultural biotech produces food containing fewer toxins such as mycotoxins, a toxic fungus that infects plants damaged by pests. Agricultural biotech protects soil from erosion and compaction by enabling farmers to reduce the need to plough their fields and the need to travel up and down their fields to manage weeds or pests because the agbiotech plants protect themselves against both. By disturbing soil less, this also increases the efficiency of water usages by keeping the water in the soil. By offering new, improved and adapted agricultural crops such as drought or saline resistant plants, agricultural biotech can contribute to meeting the Millennium Development Goals on reducing poverty and can help increase food security for a growing global population. 

Due to rapid progress in research, biotechnology is being widely applied in medicine and agriculture. Its application in medicine includes pharmacogenomics, pharmaceutical products, genetic testing, gene therapy, human genome project and even cloning. In agriculture it is applied to increase crop yield; reduce vulnerability of crops to environmental stresses; increase nutritional qualities; improve taste, texture or appearance of food; reduce dependence on fertilizers, pesticides and other agrochemicals; and to produce novel substances in crop plants.
The field of modern biotechnology is thought to have largely begun on June 16, 1980, when the United States Supreme Court ruled that a genetically modified microorganism could be patented in the case of Diamond vs. Chakrabarty. Indian-born Ananda Chakrabarty, working for General Electric, had developed a bacterium, derived from the Pseudomonas genus, capable of breaking down crude oil, which he proposed to use in treating oil spills.
Today, besides healthcare and agriculture, biotechnology has applications in 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 organisms 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, cleanup sites contaminated by industrial activities (bioremediation), and also to produce biological weapons.
Biotechnology as a subject has become so vast that several branches have cropped up and a series of derived terms have been coined to identify them. Bioinformatics is an interdisciplinary field which addresses biological problems using computational techniques, and makes the rapid organization and analysis of biological data possible. 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.
While blue biotechnology refers to the marine and aquatic applications of biotechnology, green biotechnology is applied to agricultural processes, red biotechnology is applied to medical processes, and white biotechnology is applied to industrial processes. The investment and economic output of all of these types of applied biotechnologies is termed as bio economy.
In medicine, modern biotechnology finds promising applications and is often associated with the use of genetically altered microorganisms such as E. coli or yeast for the production of substances like synthetic insulin or antibiotics. It can also refer to transgenic animals or transgenic Plants, such as corn. Genetically altered mammalian cells, such as Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cells, are also used to manufacture certain pharmaceuticals. Biotechnology is also commonly associated with landmark breakthroughs in new medical therapies to treat hepatitis B, hepatitis C, cancers, arthritis, haemophilia, bone fractures, multiple sclerosis, and cardiovascular disorders.
The biotechnology industry has also been instrumental in developing molecular diagnostic devices that can be used to define the target patient population for a given biopharmaceutical. Another promising new biotechnology application is the development of plant-made pharmaceuticals.
An advantage of modern biotechnology is that it can be used to manufacture existing medicines relatively easily and cheaply. Modern biotechnology has evolved, making it possible to produce more easily and relatively cheaply human growth hormone, clotting factors for hemophiliacs, fertility drugs, erythropoietin and other drugs. Genomic knowledge of the genes involved in diseases, disease pathways, and drug-response sites are expected to lead to the discovery of thousands more new targets.
In agriculture, using the techniques of modern biotechnology, one or two genes may be transferred to a highly developed crop variety to impart a new character that would increase its yield. However, while increases in crop yield are the most obvious applications of modern biotechnology in agriculture, it is also the most difficult one. Current genetic engineering techniques work best for effects that are controlled by a single gene.
Many of the genetic characteristics associated with yield (e.g., enhanced growth) are controlled by a large number of genes, each of which has a minimal effect on the overall yield. There is, therefore, much scientific work to be done in this area.
Another application of biotechnology involves developing crops that contain genes that enable them to withstand biotic and abiotic stresses. Biotechnologists are studying plants that can cope with extreme conditions like drought and excessively salty soil in the hope of finding the genes that enable them to do so and eventually transferring these genes to the more desirable crops.
Biotechnology would also help in modifying proteins in foods to increase their nutritional qualities. Proteins in legumes and cereals may be transformed to provide the amino acids needed by human beings for a balanced diet. Modern biotechnology can be used to slow down the process of spoilage so that fruit can ripen longer on the plant and then be transported to the consumer with a still reasonable shelf life. This alters the taste, texture and appearance of the fruit. More importantly, networked cameras that enable governments to watch our every move, rapid invention of wondrous products, or weapons development fast enough to destabilize any arms race.