Basics of Biotechnology

India is one of the most sought-after destinations for biotechnology and has been growing rapidly with generous investments from foreign, supportive government policies, experienced workforce, and increasing demand. India’s biotechnology industry is in an excellent position to transition into Bio-economy. The compounded annual growth rate of biotechnology in India is 20%.

Recent Developments

  • In a landmark decision, the Loksabha on Jan 8th, 2019, has passed The DNA Technology (Use and Application) Regulation Bill – 2019. The Bill has been formulated recognizing the need for regulation of the use and application of Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) technology, for establishing identity of missing persons, victims, offenders, under trials and unknown deceased persons.
  • In June 2018, India signed two Bilateral Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) with Cuba and Korea in the area of Biotechnology. The MoUs signed with Cuba and Korea are in the agreed areas of collaboration and objectives in the field of Science & Technology, wherever the expertise in these areas exist in the country. India and Korea have signed a MoU in the area of Biotechnology and Bio-economy.
  • First indigenously developed and manufactured Rotavirus vaccine, 'Rotavac', launched by Bharat Biotech.
  • Current Good Manufacturing Practices (CGMP) Plant inaugurated at CSIR-IIIM, Jammu for the manufacture of phyto-pharmaceuticals.
  • India’s first cellulosic ethanol technology, demonstration, plant developed through indigenous technology.
  • A virtual centre launched across five Indian Institutes of Technology to develop advance technologies in the area of biofuels.
  • Asia’s largest MedTech Zone (AMTZ) being set up in Andhra Pradesh to host around 200 independent manufacturing units.
  • World’s first Typhoid conjugate vaccine, TypbarTCV developed by Bharat Biotech was prequalified by WHO, reinforcing a national commitment to improving the health of children around the world.
  • India’s 1st public-private-partnership agreement was announced between Sun Pharma & Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), Govt. of India, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Govt. of Madhya Pradesh for Malaria Free India initiative and other innovation in preventive health.
  • During 2018-19 itself, 15 new Biotechnology Incubators and 15-20 new Technology Business Incubators will be established to incubate start-ups. Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) alone would support 3000 additional start-ups next year.
  • LOTUSHR (Local Treatment of Urban Sewage Streams for Healthy Reuse) project, under the concept of waste to wealth, is being implemented in collaboration with the Netherlands, with the objective of cleaning the sewage water of the Barapullah drain – the second largest drain in Delhi, while simultaneously recovering resources from it.
  • The Department of Bio-technology has assumed leadership role in the country by partnering with Finland, the country with the best education system, in the area of EduTech. The proposed programme aims to develop futuristic education based on EduGames and EduTech for India.
  • In order to accelerate discovery research to early development for biopharmaceutical, National Biopharma Mission was Launched in 2017.The program named Innovate in India (i3) is an industry- academia collaborative mission of Department of Biotechnology (DBT) in collaboration with World Bank for accelerating discovery research to early development of Biopharmaceuticals and to be implemented by Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC).
  • DBT has announced a unique mission to construct a laboratory on a boat for doing research at different laboratories in north east region. Named Brahmaputra Biodiversity and Biology Boat (B4), this well-equipped laboratory would contain facilities for analysis of all components of the entire ecosystem of the river and surroundings.

2nd National Biotechnology Conclave 2018, New Delhi

The 2nd National Biotechnology Conclave was recently organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in partnership with the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology in New Delhi.

Theme: Driving inclusive growth for India Bio-economy Vision-2025.

The conference also highlighted the importance of ‘Make in India’ in biotechnology sector and the National Biotechnology Development Strategy which has provided a strategic roadmap for India’s emergence as a global biotech innovation hub with a target of $100 billion by 2025.

Basics of Biotechnology

  • Biotechnology deals with techniques of using live organisms or enzymes from organisms to produce products and processes useful to humans.
  • The phrase 'biotechnology' was coined by the Hungarian engineer Karl Ereky in 1919 but this term has been used by humans since ancient times for producing food.

Application of Biotechnology

  • Biotechnology has application in four major industrial areas, including health care (medical), crop production and agriculture, non-food (industrial) uses of crops and other products (e.g. biodegradable plastics, vegetable oil, biofuels), and environmental uses.
  • In biological literature, Biotechnology is knowledge based on biology, particularly when used in agriculture, food science, and medicine.

Branches of Biotechnology

On the basis of application of biotechnology in different industries it is divided into following categories:

  • Red Biotechnology: It is used for medical processes, like finding genetic cures by going through genomic manipulations and creating organisms to produce antibiotics.
  • Green Biotechnology: It is used to modify the genetic composition of plants to enhance existing traits or add new one. Some examples of that would be the development of transgenic plants that are calculated to survive under precise environmental circumstances. A large goal of the green biotechnology is to expand more environment friendly solutions, for example, to find a way to take out the need for pesticides. Green biotechnology, more usually known as Plant Biotechnology, is a rapidly increasing field within Modern biotechnology.
  • White Biotechnology: White Biotechnology otherwise known as manufacturing biotechnology is a type of biotechnology which is used to decrease the costs for producing industrial supplies that occur when traditional processes are used. For example, white biotechnology can expand an organism that is capable to produce a certain useful chemical by natural processes quite than by industrial ways that it was done earlier.

Area

Applications

Medical

  • Biopharmaceuticals like insulin, somatostatin, interferons
  • Pharmacogenomics
  • Gene Therapy
  • DNA Fingerprinting
  • Gene Profiling
  • Development of vaccines
  • Skin grafting Pre-natal diagnosis of inherited disease

Agriculture

  • Recombinant DNA technology
  • Somatic hybridization
  • Plant tissue culture
  • Bio fertilizer technology
  • Micro-propagation
  • Marker assisted selection
  • Pest resistant variety
  • Pesticide resistant variety

Environment

  • Bio-maker
  • Bio-energy
  • Bioremediation
  • Biotransformation
  • Bio-safety

Industry

  • Energy production
  • Enzymes
  • Fermentation based products and food
  • Biotech Instruments and Equipment
  • Bio-energy
  • Bio-fuel
  • Bioinformatics
  • Bio-mining
  • Bio-leaching
  • Blue Biotechnology: It deals with marine and a marine usage of biotechnology, but it is not very extensively used. Biotechnology with marine organisms, feed into aquaculture, marine animal and fish health, marine natural goods (including medicines), biofilms, bioremediation, marine ecology and bio-oceanography and other marine products (e.g. enzymes).
  • Bioinformatics: Bioinformatics and computational biology involve the use of techniques including applied mathematics, informatics, statistics, computer science, artificial intelligence, chemistry and biochemistry to solve biological problems usually on the molecular level.

Techniques used in Biotechnology

Genetic Engineering: The utilization of genetic machinery of life for production of any special substance is called genetic engineering. The genetic modification of micro-organisms sons is brought about by simple recombination or by complex genetic manipulations. Some of the techniques are: isolation of genes, synthesis of genes, recombinant DNA, gene cloning etc.

Cell Culture or Tissue Culture: Tissue culture is the technology of artificially growing micro­organisms or cells or tissue or organs to the desired genetic purify such as high yield and disease resistance. The microbes in culture are used in recombinant DNA technology and in a variety of industrial processes and plant cells and tissues are used varieties of genetic manipulations. For example haploid breeding and somatic cultures are being used for production of artificial seeds. Embryo culture technique has also helped extending the range of distant hybridization for plant breeding purposes.

Microbial Technology: Under this micro-organisms have been harnessed by man for the production of useful materials. Such as development of microbial enzymes active in extreme temperatures, novel antibiotics, bioactive proteins and other bio-molecules for industrial use.

DNA Fingerprinting: This is an important aspect of biotechnology first developed by Alec Jeffrey's in 1985-86 in U.K. It is a technique by which an individual can be identified at molecular level. DNA is the basic genetic material that carries a blue print for our life, but, varies significantly from one person to another. What DNA fingerprinting does is to look inside, regions of DNA that show a great deal of variations from one person to another.

Monoclonal Antibodies: Monoclonal antibodies are antibodies that are produced by one type of immune cell. This is produced when a foreign substance is injected into a vertebrate such as a mouse or human, some of the immune systems B-CELLS turns into plasma cells and start to produce antibodies that bind to that antigen. But each B-cell produces only one kind of antibody. The monoclonal antibodies are widely used as diagnostic and research reagents and are currently being utilized in many diagnostic procedures including measuring protein level and drug level in serum, identifying infectious agents, identifying tumour antigens and auto- antibodies.

Related Content