Ann Murphy and Judy Perrella. Woodrow Wilson Foundation Biology Institute. "A Further Look at Biotechnology." Princeton, NJ: The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, 1993.
Biotechnology
seems to be leading a sudden new biological revolution. It has
brought us to the brink of a world of "engineered" products that are
based in the natural world rather than on chemical and industrial
processes.
Biotechnology has been described as "Janus-faced." This implies that
there are two sides. On one, techniques allow DNA to be manipulated to
move genes from one organism to another. On the other, it involves
relatively new technologies whose consequences are untested and should
be met with caution. The term "biotechnology" was coined in 1919 by Karl Ereky, an Hungarian engineer. At that time, the term meant all the lines of work by which products are produced from raw materials with the aid of living organisms. Ereky envisioned a biochemical age similar to the stone and iron ages.
A common misconception among teachers is the thought that biotechnology
includes only DNA and genetic engineering. To keep students abreast of
current knowledge, teachers sometimes have emphasized the techniques of
DNA science as the "end-and-all" of biotechnology. This trend has also
led to a misunderstanding in the general population. Biotechnology is
NOT new. Man has been manipulating living things to solve problems and
improve his way of life for millennia. Early agriculture
concentrated on producing food. Plants and animals were selectively
bred, and microorganisms were used to make food items such as beverages,
cheese, and bread. 
The
late eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century saw
the advent of vaccinations, crop rotation involving leguminous crops,
and animal drawn machinery. The end of the nineteenth century was a
milestone of biology. Microorganisms were discovered, Mendel's
work on genetics was accomplished, and institutes for investigating
fermentation and other microbial processes were established by Koch, Pasteur, and Lister.
Biotechnology
at the beginning of the twentieth century began to bring industry and
agriculture together. During World War I, fermentation processes were
developed that produced acetone from starch and paint solvents for the
rapidly growing automobile industry. Work in the 1930s was geared
toward using surplus agricultural products to supply industry instead
of imports or petrochemicals. The advent of World War II brought the
manufacture of penicillin. The biotechnical focus moved to
pharmaceuticals. The "cold war" years were dominated by work with
microorganisms in preparation for biological warfare, as well as
antibiotics and fermentation processes.
Biotechnology
is currently being used in many areas including agriculture,
bioremediation, food processing, and energy production. DNA fingerprinting
is becoming a common practice in forensics. Similar techniques were
used recently to identify the bones of the last Czar of Russia and
several members of his family. Production of insulin and other
medicines is accomplished through cloning of vectors that now carry the
chosen gene. Immunoassays are used not only in medicine for drug level
and pregnancy testing, but also by farmers to aid in detection of
unsafe levels of pesticides, herbicides, and toxins on crops and in
animal products. These assays also provide rapid field tests for
industrial chemicals in ground water, sediment, and soil. In
agriculture, genetic engineering is being used to produce plants that
are resistant to insects, weeds, and plant diseases.
A
current agricultural controversy involves the tomato. A recent article
in the New Yorker magazine compared the discovery of the edible tomato
that came about by early biotechnology with the new "Flavr-Savr"
tomato brought about through modern techniques. In the very near
future, you will be given the opportunity to bite into the Flavr-Savr
tomato, the first food created by the use of recombinant DNA technology ever to go on sale.
What
will you think as you raise the tomato to your mouth? Will you
hesitate? This moment may be for you as it was for Robert Gibbon
Johnson in 1820 on the steps of the courthouse in Salem, New Jersey.
Prior to this moment, the tomato was widely believed to be poisonous. As
a large crowd watched, Johnson consumed two tomatoes and changed
forever the human-tomato relationship. Since that time, man has sought
to produce the supermarket tomato with that "backyard flavor." Americans
also want that tomato available year-round.
New
biotechnological techniques have permitted scientists to manipulate
desired traits. Prior to the advancement of the methods of recombinant
DNA, scientists were limited to the techniques of their time -
cross-pollination, selective breeding, pesticides, and herbicides.
Today's biotechnology has its "roots" in chemistry, physics, and biology
. The explosion in techniques has resulted in three major branches of
biotechnology: genetic engineering, diagnostic techniques, and
cell/tissue techniques.
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