Biotech or biotechnology is used in four major industries, healthcare, agriculture and crop production, non-food (industrial) application of crops and other products (for example, vegetable oil, biodegradable plastics, biofuels) and environmental uses. Here are some of the most common uses of Biotech, ?You can see that there are various options for investment in these industries?, explains Haim Toledano.
1. Biotech Application in Medicine
Biopharmaceutical
With biotechnology techniques, drugs are developed using microorganisms with no use of chemicals or synthetic materials. These drugs are usually sourced from large molecules of proteins. Thus they attack the hidden mechanisms of the disease and destroy them without any side effects.
Gene Therapy
This is used for diagnosing diseases like Parkinson?s and cancer. The underlying principle in this is that fit genes either destroy the injured cells or replace them. In some other cases, the fit genes correct the genetic information and thus those genes start working in the favor of the body.
Pharmaco-genomics
This is an additional genetically modified technique used for learning genetic information of a person. It analyzes the body?s response to drugs. Thus it?s a combination of genomics and pharmaceuticals.
Genetic Testing
This is a method of wherein heredity is used for finding the genetic diseases in parents, sex and carrier screening. DNA probes are used in this method that have some sequence identical to the mutated sequences.
2. Biotech Application in Agriculture
Biotechnology has a significant role in agriculture by modifying genes, cloning various crops so as to create better quality products and ultimately improving human life.
Some examples of this are vaccines, antibiotics, flowers, biofuels, plant and animal reproduction and more.
3. Biotech Application in Food Processing
Food processing is a process with which easily perishable and non-palatable raw materials are transformed into edible foods and potable beverages and their shelf-life is increased. The technique by which microbes and their derivatives are used to improve their edibility and shelf-life is called fermentation.
4. Biotech Application in Environment
Environmental biotechnology is the one which is used for solving environmental problems. It?s applied and used for studying natural environment.
