Essay, Paragraph or Speech on “Biotechnology” Complete Paragraph or Speech for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

Biotechnology

Essay No. 01

Biotechnology is a complex set of highly sophisticated laboratory procedures, which make use of living organisms in industries. It is used to create energy, develop new varieties of crops, and destroy waste materials and manufacture new (and unique) products. It has become the fastest growing technology the world over. It can be used in agriculture, basic sciences, engineering, manufacturing, genetic engineering, medicine and other vital areas of human endeavour. It is ultimately linked to the society that utilises its products. It can improve the quality of human life.

Scientists can isolate any gene of their interest from any living organism and incorporate that gene into any other living organism. They can also cut apart DNA molecules and paste them together (almost at their own will) regardless of the source of those molecules. So, tailor-made genes can be created and expressed in any functional cell. All this was made possible due to developments and research work in the fields of molecular biology and biotechnology.

The most useful applications of biotechnology have been witnessed in the field of agriculture. On March, 26, 2002 Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) approved the commercial production of Bt Cotton, after six years of trials. Three varieties approved by GEAC are Mech 12, Mech 162 and Mech 184. By cotton is a Genetically Modified (GM) crop. The next GM crop would be mustard (in India), according to GEAC.

GM crops are free from diseases. They withstand harsh weather and give higher yields per hectare than those given by traditional crops. These crops are also able to desist the onslaught of pests and rodents.

But here lies and crux of the problem. While modifying the genes of such crops, the scientists have made their GM offsprings dangerous enough to wipe out the living beings. For example, Bt Cotton produces a protein, which is toxic for lepidopteran (crawling) insects. This toxin exists in nature within the micro oraganism Bacillus Thuringiensis; that is why, this Gm cotton is called Bt Cotton. This genetic manipulation was done by inserting the gene Cry IAc, which was obtained from the Bacillius Thuringiensis. True, Bt Cotton would be fed with oil cakes made from the Bt Cotton crop. These animals would transfer the poison of Bt Cotton crops to milk, meat and their products. Humans (and children) would suffer due to the toxin present. The opponents of GM crops have taken a serious note of the issue of Bt Cotton due to this very reason. Other potential hazards of GM crops are: (a) reduction in biodiversity in the long run; (b) transfer of the transgene to related species or weeds (through pollen) leading to the development of superweeds; (c) transgenics resistant to pests and pathogens provoking the evolution of new and more virulent varieties of organisms/products; (d) the newly created of modified gene harming those organisms that have not been targeted, thereby harming the ecology and finally; (e) the transgene products or their intermediates proving to be biohazards to man and other living beings (including animals, birds and micro organisms).

But we should have a look at the benefits too. These are: (a) reduced use of broad-spectrum insecticides; (b) less production costs due to better-yields; (c) good-quality products; (d) increased effectiveness of beneficial anthropods as pest control agents; (e) lower levels of air pollution; and (f) less chances of crops being destroyed due to natural calamities, pests, etc.

Genetic engineering in the parlance of agricultural production has become the leading technology. That is because Green Revolution (1968-69) had hit a plateau. Excessive use of fertilisers and water and water had led to soil degradation, salinity and alkalinity. GM seeds are being deemed the harbingers of the new era that should be sans such problems.

Every new technology has its advantages and limitations we must remove the limitations of the products of biotechnology and exploit its advantages of the hill. The USA, Japan, China and Russia are far ahead of the Indian scientists in terms of biotechnology research. We are not spending funds on the research efforts and scientists. If this trend were to continue, our biotechnology programmes would drag behind those of the West by 15-20 years. We must know that it is the next revolution on the cards.

Crop yields can be increased manifold with the help of genetically modified seeds. Molecular biology and biotechnology would deliver new methods pretty soon that would revolutionise the crop production patterns. Molecular genetics tailors plants to suit different conditions. But new issues emerging in the area of biotechnology are biosafety and bioethics. The hazards witnessed in the case of Bt Cotton (as described earlier in this text) might spring up even more serious challenges in the cases of other crops. People (especially, farmers) would accept Gm  crop only then, when they are sure that these crops would not affect their economy, ecology and health. Many opponents of GM crops (or other products of biotechnology) want these research efforts to be stopped. But Scientists should slowly but surely eliminate the hazards present in such products and then, make them available for mass use. After all, the first steam engine was also deemed an iron monster during its first trial run!

Thus, genetic engineering could lead the nation to her second Green Revolution. Genetic engineering would soon make his presence felt in other vital areas of human endeavour. Medicine is one such key area. We hope able scientists involved in the field of genetic engineering would be able to weed out its harmful effects.

Essay No. 02

Biotechnology: How It Can Affect Our Daily Life

 The most sought-after aim of the world today is achieving an economic growth fast enough to improve the life and living conditions of our teaming millions. The developed world has already got the required living standard but they still want further improvement. But we require high technology with some new inputs which are really cheap and effective enough to meet the prevailing requirements along with future aspirations of the countries like India. Among the ‘new inputs’ comes biotechnology, which is a new technique aiming at revolutionising different walks of life such as medicine, industry, agriculture, animal husbandry, environment and pollution control.

 Man has been exploiting biotechnology for thousands of years to make bread, to foment alcohol, to produce cheese and for a shorter periods to treat sewage. But the term biotechnology was coined during the late 1970s. It is a multi-disciplinary subject evaluated from the integrated use of life science, chemical sciences and engineering sciences. As elegant and expedient definition of biotechnology is the manipulation of living organisms and biological processes to provide useful products, to manufacturing industries. It is the technological exploitation and control of biological systems and micro-organisms or their components to provide certain goods and services. Biotechnology takes the application of scientific and engineering principles to the processing of materials by biological agents. These biological agents are enzymes, micro-organisms, unicellular or multicellular plants and animals. Now these biological agents are again being modified through genetic engineering or recombinant DNA technique, to suit to the needs of the mankind.

Biotechnology includes various types of technologies namely, Recombinant DNA Technology for Genetic Engineering, protoplast fusion, Hybridoma technology, Cell Culture, Tissue Culture, Germplasm development, Embryotransfer technology, Enzyme and protein engineering, Fermentation, Bioconversion and Immobilisation of cells and cellular products.

Biotechnology has immense potential for use in agriculture, forestry, horticulture, medicine, health, chemical industry, food industry, pollution control and environment. The modern world has laid its future hopes on this technology for subsistence and all-round progress and development. Residents of this planet are facing many problems and it is hoped that if the same progress be followed in the approach towards curtailing the prevailing conditions, then it will go on enhancing further. First and foremost is the problem of population, we have to fetter it. Food consumption is far below the required standard in developing countries. Environmental quality is deteriorating every fraction of the time known. Agricultural soil is also getting deteriorated widely. Energy resources are going away from our treasury. So, we need non-fuel minerals for the purpose. Mankind is facing new damages to human health through microbial and non-microbial diseases like cancer and AIDS. Biotechnology has promised some alternatives or solutions to the problems mentioned about.

 Probable applications of biotechnology include the development of better and cheaper drugs, better antifertility agents, hormone production, immunologistic kits, vaccines for cancer, geneprobe and genetherapy. Monodonal antibodies MABs are used in the diagnosis of sexually transmitted diseases and cancer in connection of drug overdose, treatment of cancer. Different pharmaceuticals like interferon insulin and other hormones, antibiotics, human virokinose, etc., have been produced by recombinant DNA Technology. Production of interferon which is a wonder protein drug for cancer and viral disease and human insulin which is a hormone required to rectify diabetes has been revolutioned through biotechnological applications. A hormone, somatostatin 5 mg of which was produced from half a million sheep brains up now be produced from a 9-litre bacterial culture.

 Gene therapy and development of multi-disease vaccines are the other areas where biotechnology is expected to yield wonder. It might be possible to rectify the hereditary diseases through gene therapy with the recent achievement in laboratory animals, i.e., producing large size mice by transfer of growth hormone gene, the possibilities of eugenic creating desired humans are seen bright. What is considered an imagination today might turn might be reality in not too distant future. Man derives food mainly from plant and animal resources. Biotechnology holds a tremendous potential in improving these resources in various ways. Improvement of crop plants through genetic manipulation would go a long way in meeting the escalating necessities of food. Some useful traits like herbicide, drought, frost and pest resistances might be transferred to important crop species already been made in transforming the frost resistance genes into crop plants. Work is being done on increasing growth rate, photosynthetic ability and nitrogen fixation in plants through genetic tools of biotechnology.

The production of microbial proteins has been practised since World War I, when Debruch in Berlin developed Drewer’s yeast on a large-scale. The cells were mainly incorporated into soups and sausages. It is known as SCP (Single Cell Protein). It is a potential protein source food for humans and animals. For human use, microbes used are primarily, `Saccharomyces Cerevisiae’ and `Condida Utilis’. Further, biotechnology has market impact in the sweetener industry. Baker’s yeast wine, beer, sour hunch bread, yoghurt, cheese, vinegar is some of the foods and beverages obtained from micro-organisms.

Recently a protein that increases milk production in dairy cows and improves feed utilisation, has been produced with the help of genetic engineering techniques in USA. This protein is expected to be commercialised in a couple of years to increase the economy and efficiency of dairy farming all over the world.

The variety of toxic and non-toxic wastes expelled every-day by industries are posing serious threat to human life through environmental pollution. One of the potent methods of eliminating these wastes is through biodegradation. A superbug, Pseudomonas Putida, created by an Indian Scientist in USA, Dr. A. Chakravarty, through such techniques can scavenge oil in sea. Many other such organisms could be created to degrade and detoxify a variety of harmful chemicals in the environment. The communicable diseases can be prevented through vector-control. Biogas generation from wastes has proved its utility in various ways. Sewage treatment is carried out by aerobic and anaerobic micro-organisms. The effluent from yeast oil and cider breweries, from dairies and from potato starch factory can be efficiently processed by an anaerobic process in which the active biological compound is recycled and a hitch produces less residual sludge as well as less offensive odors. This would avoid the possible ill-effects on human health had such animal and plant species as are useful to mankind.

Production of fine chemicals from agricultural wastes through microbial processes, la t cells, animal cells, production of antibiotics, vitamins, amino acids, biofuel employing microbial transformation and preservation of industrial products from spoilage are some of the major applications of biotechnology in industry.

The existing petrochemicals and other sources of energy are depleting fast with the advancement of modern world. The solution to this problem seems to come through biotechnology. Processes have been developed for generating liquid and gaseous biofuels in recent years. Ethanol among liquid and methane among gaseous (biogas) biofuels constitute important alternatives to coal, wood, oil petroleum and other existing sources of energy. Various waste materials are being used for bio converting them into biofuels by such micro-organisms.

Sugarcane, banana, vegetable crops and orchids have already been commercially produced using tissue culture in India. And in the time to come tissue culture technology will also be applied for bamboo, mustard, rice, sandalwood and other agricultural fields. From nutritional point of view, plant proteins suffer from amino acid imbalances. By genetic engineering, it may be possible to correct the imbalance of amino acid profiles in seed proteins.

The process of biological nitrogen fixation is carried out by free living and symbiotic micro-organisms. The symbiotic micro-organisms form association with other plants to fix nitrogen. By the presence of these micro-organisms in the root nodules of leguminous, plants result in improved grain yield.

In the veterinary field, biotechnological applications include utilisation of hybridoma technology for animal healthcare, production of sage and efficient vaccines for infectious diseases, embryo transfer, development of novel techniques in animal breeding through genetic engineering at gameter orgdnod level transgenic animals, production of fish growth hormone by DNA technology etc. And in animals, it provides a cheap, fast and simple method with few side effects. This technique will have an impact on efforts to reduce the population of low grade genetic stock of little economic value.

The application of biotechnology in the area of animal husbandry in increasing production efficiency, through manipulation and control of physiology and for promoting better healthcare through bio-pharmaceuticals is worth noting. Embryo transfer technology will enhance animal production in the years to come. It would also boost animal productivity by improved new feeds and fodder through bio-conversion processes, tissue culture and other genetic techniques respectively. Along with this a number of non-conventional food constituents like single cell proteins, sweeteners, edible oils, etc., and food additives like vitamins, amino acids, etc., have been and can be generated through biotechnological processes. It can also be used for better processing of food.

Today among the most pressing problems faced by our country is the population explosion. What we have got to do is to adopt family planning. Towards this Government op up numerous programmes with different techniques. Now a novice programme called “Immunological Approach to fertility control” have been devised. The objectives of this project is to develop safest, cost-effective, efficacious, long-lasting and reversible contraceptive vaccines using immunological approaches. The National Institute of Immunology has developed a candidate vaccine for the failure of pregnancy.

The powerful potential implicit in these revolutionary techniques has focussed everyone’s attention on the biotechnology industry and significant investments have been made in this area since the early eighties. The impact is being realised with a range of products and processes being introduced in such areas as agriculture, forestry, horticulture, medicine, health, chemical industry, food industry, pollution control and environment. There is a promise of further technological progress, but the question marks about the sustainability of this progress in view of the fragility of our environment and biological heritage call for novel technological solutions in an eco-friendly manner.

Essay No. 03

Biotechnology

“Biotechnology is a fasting emerging new scientific field after the big Information Technology boom that engulfed the whole of the Indian population in no time and provided many an outlet to prosperity. By seeing the present scenario, it is not thought to predict what the next scientific revolution in India, will be, and most experts point towards biotechnology .”

Biotechnology is basically the study of direct manipulation of biological life at a fundamental level to produce substances which are very useful to the human beings. By studying the biological life, we mean the study of the basic cell and molecular structure, the genome (the genes in an organism) and their advanced artificial cultivation for further improvement. It is multidisciplinary in nature which means that it includes several disciplines of basic sciences and engineering. Biotechnology draw heavily from science disciplines like; microbiology, chemistry, biochemistry, genetics, molecular biology, immunology, cell and tissue culture and physiology. Ori the engineering side, it leans heavily on process chemical and biochemical engineering since large cultivation of micro-organism and cells, their downstream processing etc. are based on them. At present the field of biotechnology has advanced to the areas like gene technology and beyond, and is interdisciplinary subject covering biomedical research, microbiology, physics, chemistry, mathematics and engineering.

 Man has been exploiting biotechnology for thousands of years to make bread, to foment alcohol, to produce cheese and for a shorter periods to treat sewage. But the term biotechnology was coined during the late 1970s. Biotechnology includes various types of technologies, namely, Recombinant DNA Technology for Genetic Engineering, protoplast fusion, Hybridoma technology, Cell Culture, Tissue Culture, Germplasm development, Embryo transfer technology, Enzyme and protein engineering, Fermentation, Bioconversion and immobilization of cells and cellular products.

Biotechnology has immense potential for use in agriculture, forestry, horticulture, medicine, health, chemical industry, food industry, pollution control and environment. The modern world has laid its future hopes on this technology for subsistence and all-round progress and development. Residents of this planet are facing many problems and it is hoped that if the same progress be followed in the approach towards curtailing the prevailing conditions, then it will go on enhancing further. First and foremost is the problem of population, we have to fetter it. Food consumption is far below the required standard in developing countries. Environmental quality is deteriorating every fraction of the time known. Agricultural soil is also getting deteriorated widely. Energy resources are going away from our treasury. So, we need non-fuel minerals for the purpose. Mankind is facing new damages to human health through microbial and non-microbial diseases like Cancer and AIDS. Biotechnology has promised some alternatives or solutions to the problems mentioned about.

The core applications of biotechnology lie in health care, agriculture and animal husbandry and industry. Applications of Biotechnology include (1) medical biotechnology: where new vaccines and cures for disease are developed and improved drugs are worked upon (2) Plant Biotechnology : where genetically improved varieties of plants and crops are developed. (3) Animal Biotechnology: cross breeding of different species of animal is done to have better species of animal (4) Environmental Biotechnology: where the information related to several microbes and other organism is utilized to solve the environmental problems. In India, though biotechnology has not attained such gigantic proportions, it has not lagged behind. The National Botanical Research Institute in Lucknow is, at present, working to develop a disease-resistant variety of cotton. The Pusa Institute in Delhi has developed several types of seeds for crops and vegetables. A kidney transplant was carried out successfully in New Delhi by the keyhole method of surgery. But Biotechnology has posed a threat to the country’s biodiversity. Global companies are endeavouring to patent those products that have been our legacy. The battle for patent of turmeric was won by us. But, Basmati Rice and neem are being vied for patent by American companies. This has become a challenge for India and we must face it with determination. India came up with a breakthrough in clonning when dairy scientists in Karnal developed several identical buffalo calves from a single embryo. The department of Biotechnology has launched the project : ‘Human Genome – The Indian Initiative’. The project deals with the mapping of all the genes present in man. It would, then, be possible to alter and remove defective genes in an individual. India is fast catching up with international standards of biotechnology. Recently Department of Biotechnology has established a network of 7 centres throughout the country e.g. Bangalore, Coimbatore, Hissar etc. with the objective of special emphasis on cotton, rice and vegetable. Technology for mass production of biocontrol agent’s like beculovirus, parasites, fungi, bacteria etc. Two pilot plants at Madurai and Coimbatore have also launched. Biotechnology has been able to combat a number of disease. Its contribution to the field of agriculture is unparalled. Soon, hereditary diseases could be eliminated . Efforts are on, to control the body’s biological clock. A number of disease-genetic or those caused by external sources have been eliminated. Efforts should be made by man not to tamper with nature. Biotechnology should be used for the betterment of the society, by eradicating diseases of the humans, and the flora and fauna. Only then, man can claim himself to be superior to other animals on the earth.