Tag: biotechnology: general introduction

• Biotechnology is the science of engineering and technology for industrial and other purposes, especially the genetic manipulation of microorganisms for the production of antibiotics, hormones, etc. 
• Bioengineering is the application of the principles of engineering and natural sciences to tissues, cells and molecules. It improves the functions of plants and animals.

Dolly was a female domestic sheep, and the first mammal to be cloned from an adult somatic cell, using the process of nuclear transfer. Ian Wilmut developed Dolly.

Reverse genetics is a method that is used to help understand the function of a gene by analyzing the phenotypic effects of specific engineered gene sequences. Reverse genetics usually proceeds in the opposite direction of so-called forward genetic screens of classical genetics. The goal in reverse genetics is Identification of gene from map position.

White or gray biotechnolgy involves industrial processes such as the development of new chemicals or production of new fuel for vehicles.

• The recombinant DNA technology by which DNA fragments from different organisms are joined together to produce new genetic combinations was discovered by Stanley Cohen and Herbert Boyer. 

• Dolly, a Finn Dorset lamb, was produced by gene cloning by Ian Wilmut and his co-workers.

Biotechnology deals with the techniques of using live microorganisms, plant or animal cells or their components or enzymes from organisms to produce products and processes useful to human beings. It includes DNA manipulation, gene manipulation, recombinant DNA technology, and Genetic Engineering. Synthesis of genes, correction of genes, alteration of genes are included in Genetic Engineering. 

Transfer of gene from parent to offspring is a normal way of heredity. All offsprings inherit some characters from their parents as a result of fertilization. 

Thus the correct option is 'Transfer of a gene from parent to off spring'.

Pseudomonas putida is a Gram-negative, rod shaped, aerobic, chemoheterotrophic bacterium. Being chemoheterotrophic, they use organic compounds as source of their energy. This bacterium can break down any of aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons. Most of the organic toxins are aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons. Genetically engineered marine-dweller Pseudomonas putida use hydrocarbons as fuel and break down the ring structures of the hydrocarbons in oil spill in presence of enzymes and seawater oxygen and emit carbon dioxide. 

Antibiotic production is major industrial application of microbes. Penicillin (the first antibiotic discovered) was discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928, while working on Staphylococcus bacteria, that he observed growing in one of his unwashed petri cultures. However, its full potential as effective antibiotic was established much later by Ernest Chain and Howard Florey who got the noble prize in 1945 for this discovery.

Use of microbes or the living cells in industry and technology to manufacture certain food,drugs(medicines) and chemicals etc is known as biotechnology.

Genetic engineering, also called as genetic modification, is the direct manipulation of an organism's genome using biotechnology. It is a set of technologies used to change the genetic makeup of cells, including the transfer of genes within and across species boundaries to produce improved or novel organisms.