Biotechnlogy refers to a scientific field of applied biology, biochemistry and genetics. It involves the use of living organisms (usually bacteria) and the products of their cellular metabolism in medicine, environmental and other fields that can be run using the byproducts of the bacterial metabolism. The most popular form of biotechnology is genetic engineering. The techniques use in genetic engineering are applied to solve the simplest biological problems to the most complicated and difficult ones. Essentially all research done in the integrated fields of biology, biochemistry, genetics and chemistry incorporates biotechnological processes such as genetic engineering.
As stated above, the applications of biotechnology are varied. One of its most prominent uses is in medicine. Developing novel antibiotics, leaning about antibiotic resistance, gene therapy, cancer and diebities research as well as research on gut flora (the disruptions of which are found to be the underlying cause of a large number of modern diseases) and studies on genetic disorders are based on the biotechnology. On the prokaryotic end, the bacteria E. coli are most commonly used in these cases to work with genes, manipulate mutations, and study antibiotic resistance. On the eukaryotic end, mice are often used to study function of genes, mutations in genes as well as express certain phenotypes to see the effects of gene manipulation.
Another field in which biotechnology is used is agriculture and energy production. In agriculture biotechnology is applied to improve the crops by engineering drought or insect resistant genes into the plants. In energy production biotechnology is used to harvest the the products of certain bacterial matabolism and convert it to a usable fuel. This type of work is becoming the new “hot” area of research in biology and integrated chemistry.
Biotechnology has taken the world of scientific discovery to a whole new level, allowing scientists to probe in to the world of DNA with a set of whole new tools.