Biotechnology

Name:
Biotechnology
Detailed information:
A definition prepared by a committee of British scientists in a report issued by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (Paris) may be considered official and definitive. It states that biotechnology is “application of scientific and engineering principles to the processing of any organic or inorganic substance by biological agents to provide goods and services; the biological agents include a wide range of biological catalysts, particularly microorganisms, enzymes, and animal and plant cells.” This involves commercial production of chemical compounds from either (1) renewable resources (biomass) or (2) nucleic acids (DNA). Examples of (1) are production of antibiotics, alcohols, and single-cell proteins by fermentation, and of (2) production of insulin, interferon, and synthetic bacteria by gene splicing. Biotechnology constitutes a major worldwide technological revolution, and may prove to be the most important development in the chemical industries since the plastics explosion of the 1930s.