Elementary plant Biochemistry and Biotechnology (2+1)

Introduction

• The word "biotechnology" was first coined in 1917 by a Hungarian agricultural engineer, Karl Ereky. He used it to describe a system for raising pigs on sugar beets as their primary food source. He defined Biotechnology as "all lines of work by which products are produced from raw materials with the aid of living things". He defined such a new terminology since most of the industries use mechanical devices - machines - to make things, biotechnology uses living organisms to make products of economic value.


• However, it seems from this definition that Biotechnology is ancient or even prehistoric, going back at least 12,000 years. The earliest evidence for domestication of animals is the dog, ca. 12,000 years ago. The above said definition can also be used for most agricultural production. The earliest evidence for the invention of agriculture is about 11,000 years ago in SW Asia (the Fertile Crescent), North China, and South China.


• Apart from the traditional cultivation of crops and raising of livestock, there are a number of other older technologies that can also be characterized as biotechnology:
1. Fermentation: Another prehistoric or ancient biotechnology is the use of yeast. All of the food processing systems such as brewing beer, wine-making, baking bread rely on yeast to alter the properties of a raw material.
2. Sewage treatment: Organic wastes are degraded by the action of a complex community of microbes.
• But the concept of this biotechnology have been altered beyond this original vision by a series of developments in the life sciences. These developments center on the ability to:
• isolate genes from any organism
• modify and manipulate these genes
• put these altered genes back into various organisms
• This is the heart of the "biological revolution" that is going on at the moment.
• The 19th century and early 20th century saw the development of many mechanical devices, and the 20th century had the era of chemicals and electronics. But in the 21st century we will likely see our understanding of biological processes put to greater use in changing how we live our lives. This led to the development of different branches of biotechnology in plant science such as
• plant tissue culture
• genetic engineering or recombinant DNA technology
• DNA marker technology or Marker assisted breeding or molecular breeding
• Bioinformatics
• Environmental biotechnology
• Biofertilizers and biopesticides
• Industrial biotechnology
• Microbial biotechnology
• Food biotechnology and fermentation technology
• genetical genomics and systems biology
• biosafety, bioethics, intellectual property rights (IPR) with respect to biotechnology etc.,
• As that of plant biotechnology, biotechnology has various fields or branches in medicine, pharmaceuticals and other branches of life sciences.