Biotech: A Growing Field

By: Tanishtha Nath and Hannah Lee

You often hear about the topic of biotechnology in the news or see it mentioned in scientific articles, but what exactly is it? Is biotech is a subject related to medicine, agriculture, or the environment? Well, the answer is all of the above and more! Biotechnology, put in simple terms, is a kind of technology that uses living organisms to make products. This includes drugs, therapeutics, nutritional compounds, or environmentally beneficial chemicals.

People commonly assume biotechnology is just the study of medicine or genetics. In reality, this is not the case; while biotech is a crucial component of medicine, there are numerous additional fields that incorporate biotechnology. In recent years, the field of biotech has grown rapidly, and has made a huge impact on all of our lives (take the COVID-19 vaccines, for example!). Whether it be medical, agricultural, environmental, industrial, or marine biotech, our lives would not be the same without substantial developments in biotechnology.

As a brief introduction to each field, medical biotechnology, also known as ‘red’ biotech, relates to health and medicine. This is the most commonly known form of biotech and includes the study and creation of pharmaceutical drugs, antibodies, vaccines, and more. Medical biotech finds solutions to health-related problems using biological materials.

Agricultural and environmental biotechnology coincide and are known as ‘green’ biotech. As the name suggests, agricultural biotech is related to agriculture. Projects that concern agricultural biotechnology include genetically modifying plants to produce stronger, more nutritious plants. Environmental biotech combines biology and engineering to achieve specific goals such as cleaning contaminated sites. Tasks involved with environmental biotech include converting plants to biofuels, converting waste into natural sources of energy, and more!

Industrial biotechnology, or ‘white’ biotech, affects the textile, food, and energy fields; it is also the largest branch of biotech. ‘White’ biotech focuses on using fewer natural resources and less energy to create better products. One important discovery made in industrial biotech is the use of bacterial enzymes to manufacture washing powder.

Marine biotechnology, or ‘blue’ biotech, is the study of marine organisms for human purposes, such as reducing diseases caused by infectious pathogens from marine organisms. It can also be used to create alternative sources of energy; for example, microalgae can be used to synthesize biofuel. Large quantities of different proteins, enzymes, biomaterials, and additional substances can be created from marine ecosystems.

To sum up, biotech involves far more than finding antidotes or studying DNA. There are many more topics in this subject that we plan on discussing as part of this blog. After all, biotech is a growing field and new discoveries are being made everyday!

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Sources:

Brinson, Phillip and Nelson Brinson. “Types of Biotechnology Explained: 4 Biotech Colors.”

BiotechHealth, 11 Aug. 2020, https://biotechhealth.com/what-are-the-4-types-of-biotechnology/.

Lee, Sang Yup. “Biotechnology: What It Is and How It's about to Change Our Lives.” World

Economic Forum, 20 Dec. 2016, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/12/what-is-biotechnology-how-will-it-change-our-lives/.