Biotechnology is the application of scientific principles and techniques for the processing of materials by biological agents to provide goods and services. Since its inception, biotechnology has maintained a close relationship with society. Although it is now most commonly associated with drug development, historical biotechnology has been primarily linked to food, addressing problems such as malnutrition and hunger. The history of biotechnology begins with zimotechnology, which begins with a focus on brewing techniques for beer. However, in World War I, zimotechnology will evolve to address larger industrial problems, and the potential for industrial fermentation to raise biotechnology. However, both single-cell and gas-protein projects fail to thrive due to various problems including public resistance, economic change, and shifts in political power.
But the formation of new fields, genetic engineering, will soon bring biotechnology to the forefront of science in society, and intimate relationships between the scientific community, the public and the government will happen. This debate gained exposure in 1975 at the Asilomar Conference, where Joshua Lederberg was the most outspoken supporter of this emerging field in biotechnology. In early 1978, with the development of synthetic human insulin, Lederberg's claims would prove valid, and the biotechnology industry grew rapidly. Every new scientific advancement became a media event designed to gain public support, and in the 1980s, biotechnology grew into a promising real industry. In 1988, only five proteins from genetically engineered cells were approved as drugs by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but this number would skyrocket to over 125 in the late 1990s.
The field of genetic engineering remains a hot topic of discussion in today's society with the advent of gene therapy, stem cell research, cloning, and genetically modified foods. While it seems natural now to connect pharmaceutical drugs as a solution to health and social problems, these biotechnological relationships serve social needs centuries ago.
Video History of biotechnology
The origins of biotechnology
Biotechnology emerged from the field of zymotechnology or zymurgy, which began as a search for a better understanding of industrial fermentation, particularly beer. Beer is an important industrial commodity, and not just social. At the end of the 19th century in Germany, brewing contributed a great deal to the gross national product as steel, and the tax on alcohol proved to be a significant source of income for the government. In the 1860s, profitable institutes and consultants were devoted to brewing technology. The most famous is the private Carlsberg Institute, founded in 1875, which employs Emil Christian Hansen, who pioneered the pure yeast process for consistent beer production. Less well known are private consultants who advise the brewing industry. One of them, Zymotechnic Institute, was founded in Chicago by German-born chemist John Ewald Siebel.
The heyday and expansion of zimotechnology came in World War I in response to the industry's need to support the war. Max DelbrÃÆ'¼ck grew yeast on a large scale during the war to meet 60 percent of the need for German animal feed. Other fermentation product compounds, lactic acid, are made for hydraulic fluid deficiency, glycerol. On the Allied side, Russian chemist Chaim Weizmann uses flour to remove acetone deficiency in the UK, the main raw material for cordite, by fermenting corn to acetone. The potential of the fermentation industry has surpassed traditional homes in brewing, and "zimotechnology" soon gave way to "biotechnology."
With food shortages spreading and resources fading, some are dreaming of new industry solutions. The Hungarian KÃÆ'¡roly Ereky invented the word "biotechnology" in Hungary during 1919 to describe a technology based on converting raw materials into more useful products. He built a slaughterhouse for a thousand pigs and also a fattening farm with space for 50,000 pigs, raising more than 100,000 pigs a year. The company is extraordinarily large, becoming one of the largest and most profitable meat and fat operations in the world. In a book titled Biotechnologie , Ereky further develops themes that will be reaffirmed through the 20th century: biotechnology can provide solutions to social crises, such as food and energy shortages. For Ereky, the term "biotechnologie" refers to the process by which raw materials can be biologically upgraded into socially useful products.
This slogan spread quickly after the First World War, because "biotechnology" entered the German dictionary and was taken abroad by a business-hungry private consultant as far away as the United States. In Chicago, for example, the coming ban at the end of World War I encouraged biological industries to create opportunities for new fermentation products, especially the market for non-alcoholic beverages. Emil Siebel, son of Zymotechnic Institute's founder, broke away from his father's company to set up his own "Bureau of Biotechnology," which specifically offers expertise in fermented non-alcoholic beverages.
The belief that the needs of the industrial community can be met by fermenting agricultural wastes is an essential element of the "chemical movement." The fermentation-based process produces a product of ever growing utility. In the 1940s, penicillin was the most dramatic. When found in the UK, it is manufactured industrially in the US using a deep fermentation process originally developed in Peoria, Illinois. The great gains and public expectations of penicillin caused a radical shift in the pharmaceutical industry. Doctors use the phrase "magic drug", and his wartime historian David Adams has suggested that public penicillins represent the perfect health that goes along with American wars cars and wartime dream homes. Beginning in the 1950s, fermentation technology also became advanced enough to produce steroids on a significant industrial scale. Most important is the increase of semisynthesis of cortisone which simplifies the synthesis of 31 steps to 11 steps. The down payment is estimated to reduce drug costs by up to 70%, making the drug cheaper and available. Currently biotechnology still plays a central role in the production of these compounds and is likely to occur in the coming years.
Maps History of biotechnology
Single cell protein and gasohol projects
Even greater expectations of biotechnology were raised during the 1960s by a process that grows single cell proteins. When the so-called protein slit threatens world hunger, producing food locally by growing it from waste seems to offer a solution. It is possible to grow microorganisms in oil that capture the imagination of scientists, policymakers and trade. Big companies like British Petroleum (BP) are risking their future on it. In 1962, BP built a pilot plant in Cap de Lavera in southern France to publicize its product, Toprina. Initial research work on Lavera was done by Alfred Champagnat. In 1963, construction began on a second BP pilot plant at the Grangemouth Oil Refinery in England.
Since no term was well-received to describe new foods, in 1966 the term "single cell protein" (SCP) was created at MIT to provide an acceptable and interesting new title, avoiding the unpleasant connotations of microbes or bacteria.
The idea of ​​"food from oil" became very popular in the 1970s, when facilities for planting n-paraffin-fed yeasts were built in a number of countries. The Soviets were very enthusiastic, opening a large "BVK" ( belkovo-vitaminny kontentrate, that is, "protein-vitamin concentration") next to their oil refineries at Kstovo (1973) and Kirishi (1974).
In the late 1970s, however, the cultural climate has completely changed, as SCP interest growth has taken place on economic and cultural shifts (136). First, the price of oil rose tremendously in 1974, so the cost per barrel was five times greater than two years earlier. Second, despite continuing hunger around the world, anticipating demand also began to shift from human to animal. The program began with a vision of growing food for Third World people, but the product was launched as animal food for developed countries. The rapidly increasing demand for animal feeds makes the market seem more economically attractive. The major downfall of the SCP project, however, came from public resistance.
It's very vocal in Japan, where production comes closest to the results. For all their enthusiasm for innovation and traditional interest in microbiologically produced foods, Japan was the first to ban the production of single cell proteins. Japan in the end can not separate their new "natural" food idea from the oil connotation away from nature. These arguments are made against a backdrop of heavy industry suspicion in which anxiety over the minute oil traces is expressed. Thus, public resistance to unnatural products leads to the end of the SCP project in an attempt to solve world hunger.
Also, in 1989 in the Soviet Union, public environmental concerns made the government decide to close (or convert to different technologies) all 8 yeast crops that fed the paraffins that were already owned by the Ministry of Microbiology Industry at the time.
In the late 1970s, biotechnology offered another possible solution to social crisis. The escalation of oil prices in 1974 increased the cost of tenfold western energy. In response, the US government promotes the production of gasohol, gasoline with 10 percent alcohol added, in response to the energy crisis. In 1979, when the Soviet Union sent troops to Afghanistan, the Carter administration cut its supply to agricultural produce in retaliation, creating a farm surplus in the US. Consequently, fermenting agricultural surpluses to synthesize fuels appears to be an economical solution. an oil shortage threatened by the Iran-Iraq War. However, before a new direction could be taken, the political wind changed again: The Reagan administration came to power in January 1981 and, with the decline in oil prices in the 1980s, ended support for the prewar gasohol industry.
Biotechnology seems to be the solution to major social problems, including world hunger and energy crisis. In the 1960s, radical action was needed to meet world hunger, and biotechnology seemed to provide an answer. However, solutions proved too costly and socially unacceptable, and solved the world's hunger through SCP food being fired. In the 1970s, the food crisis was replaced by an energy crisis, and here too, biotechnology seems to provide an answer. But again, the cost proved to be expensive as oil prices slumped in the 1980s. Thus, in practice, biotechnological implications are not fully realized in this situation. But this will soon change with the advent of genetic engineering.
Genetic engineering
The origins of biotechnology culminate with the birth of genetic engineering. There have been two important events that have been seen as scientific breakthroughs leading to an era that will unite genetics with biotechnology. One was the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953, by Watson and Crick, and the other was the discovery of 1973 by Cohen and Boyer on recombinant DNA techniques in which a piece of DNA was cut from plasmids from E. coli bacteria and transferred to someone else's DNA. This approach can, in principle, allow bacteria to adopt genes and produce proteins from other organisms, including humans. Popularly referred to as "genetic engineering," it was then defined as the basis of the new biotechnology.
Genetic engineering has proven to be a topic that pushes biotechnology into the public sphere, and the interaction between scientists, politicians and the public defines the work achieved in this field. The technical development during this time was revolutionary and sometimes frightening. In December 1967, the first heart transplant by Christian Barnard reminded the public that a person's physical identity becomes increasingly problematic. While the poetic imagination always sees the heart at the center of the soul, there are now individual prospects determined by the hearts of others. During the same month, Arthur Kornberg announced that he had successfully biochemically mimicked the viral genes. "Life has been synthesized," said the head of the National Institutes of Health. Genetic engineering is now on the scientific agenda, as it becomes possible to identify genetic characteristics with diseases such as beta thalassemia and sickle cell anemia.
Responses to scientific achievements are colored by cultural skepticism. Scientists and their expertise are viewed with suspicion. In 1968, a very popular work, The Biological Time Bomb , was written by British journalist Gordon Rattray Taylor. Foreword authors see Kornberg's discovery of replicating viral genes as a route to kill the doomsday insects. The publisher sale for this book warns that in ten years, "You can marry semi-artificial men or women... choose your children's sex... get rid of the pain... change your memories... and live to 150 if the scientific revolution does not destroy us first. "This book concludes with a chapter called" The Future - If There Is. " Although scarcely the current science is represented in the film, in this "Star Trek" period, science fiction and scientific facts seem to be fused. "Cloning" became a popular word in the media. Woody Allen quipped a person's clone from the nose in his 1973 movie Sleeper, and cloned Adolf Hitler from a living cell is the 1976 novel theme by Ira Levin, The Boys from Brazil .
In response to these public concerns, scientists, industry and governments are increasingly linking recombinant DNA forces to practical functions promised by biotechnology. One of the main scientific figures who attempt to highlight the promising aspect of genetic engineering is Joshua Lederberg, a Stanford professor and Nobel laureate. While in the 1960s "genetic engineering" describes eugenics and work involving manipulation of the human genome, Lederberg emphasized research that would involve microbes. Lederberg emphasized the importance of focusing on healing the living. Liederberg's 1963 work, "Biological Future of Man" states that, while molecular biology may one day make it possible to alter the human genotype, "what we have ignored is euphenics, human development engineering." Lederberg constructed the word "euphenics" to emphasize phenotypic changes after conceptions rather than genotypes that would affect future generations.
With the discovery of recombinant DNA by Cohen and Boyer in 1973, the idea that genetic engineering would have large human and social consequences was born. In July 1974, a group of leading molecular biologists led by Paul Berg wrote to Science that says the consequences of this work are so destructive that there must be a pause until the implications are thought out. This suggestion was explored at a meeting in February 1975 at the Monterey Peninsula in California, forever perpetuated by the location, Asilomar. The historic result is an unprecedented call to stop the research until it can be arranged in such a way that the public need not be anxious, and that causes a 16-month moratorium until the National Institutes of Health (NIH) guidelines are set.
Joshua Lederberg is the main exception in emphasizing, as he over the years, has potential benefits. At Asilomar, in an atmosphere that supports control and regulation, he distributes papers opposing pessimism and fear of abuse with the benefits of successful use. He described "an initial opportunity for innumerable technologies for diagnostic and therapeutic treatment: ready production of an infinite variety of human proteins." Analog applications may be foreseen in the fermentation process for the production of essential low-cost nutrients, and in the improvement of microbes for the production of antibiotics and chemicals special industry. "In June 1976, a 16-month research moratorium ended with the Advisory Committee of the Director (DAC) issuing NIH good practice guidelines. They define the risk of certain types of experiments and the physical conditions appropriate for their pursuits, as well as a list of things that are too dangerous to do at all. In addition, modified organisms are not tested beyond laboratory boundaries or allowed into the environment.
Atypical as Lederberg is at Asilomar, his optimistic vision of genetic engineering will soon lead to the development of the biotechnology industry. Over the next two years, when public attention to the dangers of recombinant DNA research grew, so did interest in its technical and practical application. Curing genetic diseases remains in the realm of science fiction, but it seems that producing simple human proteins can be a good business. Insulin, one of the smaller, most characterized and understood proteins, has been used in treating type 1 diabetes for half a century. It has been extracted from animals in a chemical form that is slightly different from human products. However, if one can produce synthetic human insulin, one can satisfy the existing demand with products whose approval will be relatively easy to obtain from the regulator. In the period 1975 to 1977, synthetic "human" insulin represented aspirations for new products that could be made with new biotechnology. The production of synthetic human insulin microbes was finally announced in September 1978 and produced by startup company Genentech. Although the company does not commercialize the product itself, on the contrary, it licenses production methods to Eli Lilly and Company. 1978 also saw the first application for patents on genes, genes that produce human growth hormone, by the University of California, thus introducing the legal principle that genes can be patented. Since the filing, nearly 20% of the more than 20,000 genes in human DNA have been patented.
The radical shift in the connotation of "genetic engineering" from the emphasis on the characteristic inheritance of people to commercial production of proteins and therapeutic drugs is maintained by Joshua Lederberg. His widespread concerns since the 1960s have been stimulated by his enthusiasm for science and his potential medical benefits. Against calls to strict rules, it reveals a vision of potential utility. Against the belief that new techniques will require unexplained and uncontrollable consequences for humanity and the environment, a growing consensus on the economic value of recombinant DNA emerges.
Biotechnology and industry
With ancient roots in industrial microbiology centuries ago, the new biotechnology industry grew rapidly from the mid-1970s. Every new scientific advancement becomes a media event designed to capture investment trust and public support. Although market expectations and social benefits of new products are often exaggerated, many people are prepared to see genetic engineering as the next big advance in technological advancement. In the 1980s, biotechnology marked the nascent real industry, giving titles to emerging trade organizations such as the Biotech Industry Organization (BIO).
The main focus of attention after insulin is a potential profit-maker in the pharmaceutical industry: human growth hormone and what is promised as a miracle cure for viral illness, interferon. Cancer was the main target in the 1970s as the disease became more and more linked to the virus. In 1980, a new company, Biogen, had produced interferon through recombinant DNA. The emergence of interferon and the possibility of curing cancer raises money in the community for research and enhances the enthusiasm of the uncertain and tentative society. In addition, in the 1970s AIDS sufferers added AIDS in the 1980s, offering a huge potential market for successful therapies, and more immediately, the market for diagnostic tests based on monoclonal antibodies. In 1988, only five proteins from genetically modified cells were approved as drugs by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA): synthetic insulin, human growth hormone, hepatitis B vaccine, alpha-interferon, and tissue plasminogen activator (TPa) for lysis of blood clots. However, in the late 1990s, 125 genetically engineered drugs would be approved.
The 2007-2008 global financial crisis caused some changes in the way the biotechnology industry was financed and organized. First, it causes a decline in overall financial investment in the sector, globally; and secondly, in some countries such as the UK, it has led to a shift from business strategy focusing on IPOs seeking trade sales. In 2011, financial investments in the biotech industry are starting to improve again and by 2014 global market capitalization will reach $ 1 trillion.
Genetic engineering also reaches the agricultural front as well. There has been tremendous progress since the introduction of the genetically engineered Flavr Savr tomato market in 1994. Ernst and Young reported that in 1998, 30% of US soybean crops were thought to come from genetically engineered seeds. In 1998, about 30% of US cotton and corn crops were also expected to be genetically engineered products.
Genetic engineering in biotechnology stimulates hope for both therapeutic proteins, drugs and biological organisms themselves, such as seeds, pesticides, engineered yeast, and human cells modified to treat genetic diseases. From the perspective of commercial promoters, scientific breakthroughs, industry commitments, and official support are finally united, and biotechnology becomes a normal part of business. No more supporters for the economic and technological interests of biotechnology, iconoclast. Their message is finally accepted and incorporated into government and industry policies.
Global trends
According to Burrill and Company, an industry investment bank, more than $ 350 billion has been invested in biotech since the emergence of the industry, and global revenues increased from $ 23 billion in 2000 to over $ 50 billion in 2005. The greatest growth has taken place in the language Latin America but all regions of the world have shown a strong growth trend. In 2007 and entering 2008, however, biotechnology wealth declines, at least in the United Kingdom, as a result of reduced investment in the face of the failure of biotechnology pipelines to deliver and consequently a decrease in return on investment.
See also
- Timeline of biotechnology
- Genetically modified organism
- Green Revolution
Further reading
- Bud, Robert. "Biotechnology in the Twentieth Century." Science Social Sciences 21,3 (1991), 415-457 doi: 10.1177/030631291021003002.
- Bud, Robert (1989). "History of biotechnology". Nature . 337 : 10. Bibcode: 1989Natur.337... 10B. doi: 10.1038/337010a0.
- Dronamraju, Krishna R. Biological and Social Issues in Biotechnology Sharing . Brookfield: Ashgate Publishing Company, 1998. ISBNÃ, 9781840148978.
- Feldbaum, Carl (2002). "Some History Must Be Repeated". Science . 295 : 975. doi: 10.1126/science.1069614. PMIDÃ, 11834802.
- Rasmussen, Nicolas, Gene Jockeys: Life Science and resurrection Biotech Enterprise , Johns Hopkins Press University (Baltimore), 2014. ISBN: 978-1-42141-340-2.
External links
- Life Science Foundation
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
0 Comments