Dictionary:

biotechnology

  (bī'ō-tĕk-nŏl'ə-jē)

Also from Answers.com... Herpes What is Herpes? Learn the signs and symptoms.

1. The use of microorganisms, such as bacteria or yeasts, or biological substances, such as enzymes, to perform specific industrial or manufacturing processes. Applications include the production of certain drugs, synthetic hormones, and bulk foodstuffs as well as the bioconversion of organic waste and the use of genetically altered bacteria in the cleanup of oil spills.
2. 1. The application of the principles of engineering and technology to the life sciences; bioengineering.
   2. See ergonomics (sense 1).

Generally, any technique that is used to make or modify the products of living organisms in order to improve plants or animals, or to develop useful microorganisms. In modern terms, biotechnology has come to mean the use of cell and tissue culture, cell fusion, molecular biology, and in particular, recombinant deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) technology to generate unique organisms with new traits or organisms that have the potential to produce specific products. Some examples of products in a number of important disciplines are described below.

Recombinant DNA technology has opened new horizons in the study of gene function and the regulation of gene action. In particular, the ability to insert genes and their controlling nucleic acid sequences into new recipient organisms allows for the manipulation of these genes in order to examine their activity in unique environments, away from the constraints posed in their normal host. Genetic transformation normally is achieved easily with microorganisms; new genetic material may be inserted into them, either into their chromosomes or into extrachromosomal elements, the plasmids. Thus, bacteria and yeast can be created to metabolize specific products or to produce new products. See also Gene; Gene action; Plasmid.

Genetic engineering has allowed for significant advances in the understanding of the structure and mode of action of antibody molecules. Practical use of immunological techniques is pervasive in biotechnology. See also Antibody.

Few commercial products have been marketed for use in plant agriculture, but many have been tested. Interest has centered on producing plants that are resistant to specific herbicides. This resistance would allow crops to be sprayed with the particular herbicide, and only the weeds would be killed, not the genetically engineered crop species. Resistances to plant virus diseases have been induced in a number of crop species by transforming plants with portions of the viral genome, in particular the virus's coat protein.

Biotechnology also holds great promise in the production of vaccines for use in maintaining the health of animals. Interferons are also being tested for their use in the management of specific diseases.

Animals may be transformed to carry genes from other species including humans and are being used to produce valuable drugs. For example, goats are being used to produce tissue plasminogen activator, which has been effective in dissolving blood clots.

Plant scientists have been amazed at the ease with which plants can be transformed to enable them to express foreign genes. This field has developed very rapidly since the first transformation of a plant was reported in 1982, and a number of transformation procedures are available.

Genetic engineering has enabled the large-scale production of proteins which have great potential for treatment of heart attacks. Many human gene products, produced with genetic engineering technology, are being investigated for their potential use as commercial drugs. Recombinant technology has been employed to produce vaccines from subunits of viruses, so that the use of either live or inactivated viruses as immunizing agents is avoided. Cloned genes and specific, defined nucleic acid sequences can be used as a means of diagnosing infectious diseases or in identifying individuals with the potential for genetic disease. The specific nucleic acids used as probes are normally tagged with radioisotopes, and the DNAs of candidate individuals are tested by hybridization to the labeled probe. The technique has been used to detect latent viruses such as herpes, bacteria, mycoplasmas, and plasmodia, and to identify Huntington's disease, cystic fibrosis, and Duchenne muscular dystrophy. It is now also possible to put foreign genes into cells and to target them to specific regions of the recipient genome. This presents the possibility of developing specific therapies for hereditary diseases, exemplified by sickle-cell anemia.

Modified microorganisms are being developed with abilities to degrade hazardous wastes. Genes have been identified that are involved in the pathway known to degrade polychlorinated biphenyls, and some have been cloned and inserted into selected bacteria to degrade this compound in contaminated soil and water. Other organisms are being sought to degrade phenols, petroleum products, and other chlorinated compounds. See also Genetic engineering; Molecular biology.

The application of high-tech research and development to the medical field. See biosensor.

Biotechnology is unique amongst the three principal technologies for the twenty-first century — information technology, materials science, and biotechnology — in being a sustainable technology based on renewable biological resources. Such natural resources include animals, plants, yeasts, and microorganisms and have formed mankind's nascent food and beverage industry for several millennia. However, the modern era of scientific biotechnology commenced with the elucidation of the structure of DNA by Watson and Crick in 1953 and the subsequent development of the tools to cleave and resplice genetic material in the early 1970s. Not surprisingly, therefore, the term ‘biotechnology’ is generally considered synonymous with gene splicing and other forms of genetic engineering. In practice, however, biotechnology refers to a library of advanced scientific tools for the manipulation of biological organisms, systems, or components for the production of goods or services in all sectors of human activity.

The early years of the ‘new’ biotechnology focused on the technologies required to clone, overexpress, purify, and administer biopharmaceuticals such as insulin, growth hormone, factor VIII (deficient in haemophilia), and erythropoietin, with some 200 other proteins currently in the pipeline. However, in the future, the most significant breakthroughs in human medicine will result from mapping and understanding the human genome — in elucidating the exact sequence of the billions of nucleotides that constitute the estimated 30 000-40 000 genes that are the collective blueprint for human beings and are responsible for some 10 000 genetic disorders. The Human Genome Project was launched in 1990 as a 15-year, $3 billion international effort to map and sequence all human genes. Innovations in sequencing technology have ensured that the project moved ahead of schedule. With less than 5% of all human genes identified at the start of the project, it has become increasingly clear that each new gene discovery proffers new drugs for the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of human disease. These drugs include therapeutic proteins, diagnostics, gene therapy reagents, and small molecules. A significant proportion of the human genome has been sequenced and many new human disease genes are being characterized. These advances will enable biotechnologists not only to measure disease potential and expand the applications for genomic diagnostics but also to devise fundamental new therapeutic approaches.

Genomics and genetic engineering are also playing a substantial role in the development of agricultural biotechnology. This sector is finally moving out from under the shadow of the biopharmaceutical community and is now competing in terms of publicity and investor attention. This is because $1 billion is considered an attractive market in the biopharmaceutical industry, whilst global agricultural markets can readily top $10 billion and the total end-use value of food, fibre, and biomass is estimated to be over $1500 billion. The addressable market on which value can be added and costs cut is at least 6-7 times that of its pharmaceutical counterpart. Two of the factors that have encouraged biotechnologists to enter the genetically engineered food and plant arena are the desire of consumers for better tasting foods and a preference for products grown using fewer pesticides. Calgene was the first company to market a genetically improved tomato which could be ripened on the vine without softening and thereby result in improved taste and texture. Antisense technology was used to inhibit the enzyme polygalacturonase which degrades pectin in the cell wall. Similarly, laurate Canola is the world's first oilseed crop that has been genetically engineered to modify oil composition. Laurate is the key raw material used in the manufacture of soap, detergent, food, oleochemical, and personal care products. Other examples of transgenic agricultural crops include high stearate and myristate oils, low saturate oils, high solids tomatoes and potatoes, sweet minipeppers, modified lignin in paper pulp trees, pesticide-resistant plants, and biodegradeable plastics.

The early goals in the development of transgenic livestock were the increase of the meat and of the production characteristics of food animals. However, long research and development timelines and low projected profit margins, especially in developed nations where food is relatively inexpensive, have shifted priorities to the production of protein pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals in the milk of transgenic animals. Milk has a high natural protein content and is sequestered in a gland where its proteins exert little direct systemic effect. It provides a renewable production system that is capable of complex and specific ‘post-translational processing’: that is, modifications to the protein that occur after it has been synthesized as a polypeptide (such as conjugation with carbohydrate moieties), which can alter the biological or therapeutic properties of the protein. Such changes cannot easily be accomplished in conventional cell culture systems. As a result, the ‘biopharming’ focus has shifted to the production of human blood plasma proteins and other therapeutic proteins, in ruminants such as cows, sheep, and goats which are easy to milk.

Marine organisms are also capable of producing a variety of polymers, adhesives, and compounds for cosmetics and food preparation. Bioactive natural products are found in organisms that reside in areas which stretch from easily accessible intertidal zones to depths in excess of 1000 m. Collaborations between marine chemists, molecular pharmacologists, and cell biologists have yielded an impressive library of potentially useful cancer, viral, antibiotic, anti-inflammatory, cardiovascular, and CNS drugs.

The pharmaceutical, agrichemical, and speciality chemical industries are increasingly requiring molecules which have distinct left- or right-handed forms, so-called chiral compounds. Whilst chemical and biological techniques for producing single left- or right-handed forms are developing apace, it is apparent that no single approach is likely to dominate. Suppliers and customers alike must continue to draw upon the entire range of chemical, enzymatic, and whole-organism tools that are available to produce chiral compounds. Unfortunately, only 10% of the 25 000 or so enzymes found in nature have been identified and characterized, and, of these, only 25 are produced in large quantities. Despite some duplication in activity among enzymes, there is a need to characterize more in order to exploit their unique specificity and activity. However, barriers to enzyme scale-up include product inhibition and a general reluctance on the part of chemists to use water-based reagents in systems which are traditionally non-aqueous. Consequently, enzymes should be made more user-friendly both for bench chemists exploring novel synthetic strategies and for all stages in pharmaceutical scale-up. However, the biologists' toolbox for catalysis is expanding. For decades, there were only two types of catalyst — metals and enzymes — but since 1986 two new classes of biocatalyst have emerged along with the enzymes, ribozymes, and catalytic antibodies. These novel biocatalysts are prepared both by classical biochemical and immunological methods and by recombinant and phage display technologies. Whilst there are still many catalysts still to be discovered, such biocatalysts will have to exhibit improved performance, stability, turnover numbers, specificity, and product yields.

Biotechnology is also playing a role in ‘clean’ manufacturing. Nevertheless, various types of chemical manufacturing, metal plating, wood preserving, and petroleum refining industries currently generate hazardous wastes, comprising volatile organics, chlorinated and petroleum hydrocarbons, solvents, and heavy metals. Bioremediation with microbial consortia is being investigated as a means of cleaning up hazardous sites. Methods include in situ and ex situ treatment of contaminated soil, groundwater, industrial wastewater, sludges, soil slurries, marine oil spills, and vapour-phase effluvia.

Biotechnology is expected to contribute massively to the global economy, largely through the introduction of recombinant DNA technology to the production of biopharmaceuticals. In the future, biotechnology will concentrate on the complexity and interrelatedness of biology, with such targets as the human genome project; genetic medicine; gene and cell therapy; tissue engineering; vaccines; factors for transcribing DNA into RNA; signal transduction and the control of gene expression; managing ageing at the level of programmed cell death, and genes that control cell division; neurobiotechnology; agri-industrial biotechnology; drug delivery; cell adhesion and communication; and novel diagnostics. Needless to say, and subject to clarification of certain ethical and public acceptance issues, biotechnology is set to make an indelible contribution to human health and welfare well into the foreseeable future.

— C. R. Lowe

Very basically, food-related biotechnology is the process by which a specific gene or group of genes with desirable traits are removed from the DNA of one plant or animal cell and spliced into that of another. Such beneficial genes might come from animals, (friendly) bacteria, fish, insects, plants and even humans. In some instances, genes that create problems (such as the natural softening of a tomato) are simply removed and not replaced. Tomatoes, for example, are generally picked green and gas-ripened later because, during shipping, they would become soft, bruised and unmarketable. A bioengineered tomato, however, can be picked ripe and shipped without softening. The objective of food biotechnology is to develop insect- and disease-resistant, shipping- and shelf-stable foods with improved appearance, texture and flavor. Additionally, biotechnology advocates say that the process will produce plants that are resistant to adverse weather conditions such as drought and frost, thereby increasing food production in previously prohibitive climate and soil conditions. They also envision increasing nutrient levels and decreasing pesticide usage through biotechnology. On the other hand, critics argue that, because biotechnology is producing new foods not previously consumed by humans, the changes and potential risks relating to such things as toxins, allergens and reduced nutrients are unpredictable. They also worry that, because genetically altered foods are not required to be labeled, people with religious or lifestyle dietary restrictions might unintentionally consume prohibited foods. In answer to such concerns, the FDA has issued the following evaluation guidelines by which a bioengineered food will be judged for approval: 1. Has the concentration of a plant's naturally occurring toxicant increased? 2. Has an allergic element not commonly found in the plant been introduced? 3. Have the levels of important nutrients changed? 4. Have accepted, established scientific practices been followed? 5. What are the effects on the environment?

1. the study of the relationships between humans or other living organisms and machinery. n 2. the industrial application of the results of biologic research such as recombinant deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and gene splicing that permit the production of synthetic hormones or enzymes.

Biotechnology, broadly defined, refers to the manipulation of biology or a biological product for some human end. Before recorded history, humans grew selected plants for food and medicines. They bred animals for food, for work, and as pets. The ancient Egyptians learned how to maintain selected yeast cultures, which allowed them to bake and brew with predictable results. These are all examples of biotechnology. In more recent times, however, the term "biotechnology" has mainly been applied to specifically industrial processes that involve the use of biological systems. Today many biotechnology companies use processes that make use of genetically engineered microorganisms.

A Revolution in Biology

Following 1953, when Thomas Watson and Francis Crick published their famous paper on the double helix structure of DNA, a series of independent discoveries were made in chemistry, biochemistry, genetics, and microbiology, which together brought about a revolution in biology and led to the first experiments in genetic engineering in 1973. Because of this revolution, scientists learned to modify living microorganisms in a permanent, predictable way. Bacteria have been made to produce medical products, such as hormones, vaccines, and blood factors, that were formerly not available or available only at great expense or in limited amounts. Crop plants have been developed with increased resistance to disease or insect pests, or with greater tolerance to frost or drought. What has made all these things possible is the collection of biochemical and molecular biological techniques for manipulating genes, which are the basic units of biological inheritance. These are the techniques used in genetic engineering or recombinant DNA technology.

The fusion of traditional industrial microbiology and genetic engineering in the late 1970s led to the development of the modern biotechnology industry. Using recombinant DNA technology, this industry has brought a long and steadily growing list of products into the marketplace. Human insulin produced by genetically engineered bacteria was one of the first of these products. It was followed by human growth hormone; an anti-viral protein called interferon; the immune stimulant called interleukin 2; a tissue plasminogen activator for dissolving blood clots; two blood-clotting factors, labeled VIII and IX, which are administered to hemophiliacs; and many other products.

Vitamin C

The production of certain chemicals has already become an important biotechnological industry. Vitamin C is a prime example. Humans, as well as other primates, guinea pigs, the Indian fruit bat, several species of fish, and a number of insects, all lack a key enzyme that is required to convert a sugar, glucose, into vitamin C.

No single bacterial genus or species is known that will carry out all of the reactions needed to synthesize vitamin C, but there are two (Erwinia species and Corynebacterium genus) that, between them, can perform all but one of the required steps. In 1985 a gene from one of these genus (Corynebacterium) was introduced into the second organism (Erwinia herbicola), resulting in a new bacterial form. This engineered organism can be used to produce a precursor to vitamin C that is converted via one chemical reaction into this essential vitamin. The engineering of many other microorganisms is being used to replace complex chemical reactions. For example, amino acids, needed for dietary supplements, are produced on a large scale using genetically modified microorganisms, as are antibiotics.

Laundry Detergents

Another important class of compounds produced by biotechnology is enzymes. These protein catalysts are used widely in both medical and industrial research. Proteases, enzymes that break down proteins, are particularly important in detergents, in tanning hides, in food processing, and in the chemical industry. One of the most significant commercial enzymes of this type is subtilisin, which is produced by a bacterium. Because many stains contain proteins, the manufacturers of laundry detergents include subtilisin in their product. Subtilisin is 274 amino acids long, and one of these, the methionine at position 222, lies right beside the active site of the enzyme. This is the site on the enzyme's surface where the substrate is bound, and where the reaction that is catalyzed by the enzyme takes place. In this instance the substrate is a protein in a stain, and the reaction results in the breaking of a peptide bond in the backbone of the protein. Unfortunately, methionine is an amino acid that is very easily oxidized, and laundry detergents are often used in conjunction with bleach, which is a strong oxidizing agent. When used with bleach, the methionine in subtilisin is oxidized and the enzyme is inactivated, preventing the subtilisin from doing its work of breaking down the proteins present in food stains, blood stains, and the like.

To overcome this problem, genetic engineering techniques were used to isolate the gene for subtilisin, and the small part of the gene that codes for methionine 222 was replaced by chemically synthesized DNA fragments that coded for other amino acids. The experiment was done in such a way that nineteen new subtilisin genes were produced, and every possible amino acid was tried at position 222. Some of the altered genes gave rise to inactive versions of the enzyme, but others resulted in fully functional subtilisin. When these subtilisins were tested for their resistance to oxidation, most were found to be very good (except when cysteine replaced methionine: It too is easily oxidized). So now it is possible to use laundry detergent and bleach at the same time and still remove protein-based stains. This type of gene manipulation, which has been called "protein engineering," has already been used for making beneficial changes in other industrial enzymes, and in proteins used for medical purposes.

Other Examples

Biotechnology companies are continuing to produce new products at an impressive rate. Numerous clinical testing procedures for human disorders such as AIDS and hepatitis and for disease-causing organisms such as those responsible for malaria and Legionnaires' disease (a lung infection caused by the bacterium Legionella pneumophila), are based on diagnostic testing kits that have been developed by biotechnology companies. Many of these assays make use of recombinant antibodies, while others rely on DNA primers that are used in the polymerase chain reaction to detect DNA sequences present in an infecting organism, but not in the human genome.

Trangenic plants are now grown on millions of acres. Many of these plant species have been engineered to produce a protein, normally synthesized by the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis, which is toxic to a number of agriculturally destructive insect pests but harmless to humans, most other non-insect animals, and many beneficial insects such as bees.

Ethical Issues

Like all industries, the biotechnology industry is subject to rules and regulations. Legal, social, and ethical concerns have been raised by the ability to genetically alter organisms. These have resulted in the establishment of governmental guidelines for the performance of biotechnology research, and specific requirements have been set to control the introduction of recombinant DNA products into the marketplace. General governmental guidelines for biotech research are published on the Internet at http://www.aphis.usda.gov/biotech/OECD/usregs.htm. Guidelines for plant genetic engineering and biotechnology are available at http://sbc.ucdavis.edu/Outreach/resource/US_gov.htm.

—Dennis N. Luck

For more information on biotechnology, visit Britannica.com.

Biotechnology, in its broadest sense, is the use of biological systems to carry out technical processes. Food biotechnology uses genetic methods to enhance food properties and to improve production, and in particular uses direct (rather than random) strategies to modify genes that are responsible for traits such as a vegetable's nutritional content. Using modern biotechnology, scientists can move genes for valuable traits from one plant into another plant. This way, they can make a plant taste or look better, be more nutritious, protect itself from insects, produce more food, or survive and prosper in inhospitable environments, for example, by incorporating tolerance to increased soil salinity. Simply put, food biotechnology is the practice of directing genetic changes in organisms that produce food in order to make a better product.

In nature, plants produce their own chemical defenses to ward off disease and insects thereby reducing the need for insecticide sprays. Biotechnology is often used to enhance these defenses. Some improvements are crop specific. For example, potatoes with a higher starch content will absorb less oil when frying, and tomatoes with delayed ripening qualities will have improved taste and freshness.

Paving the Way to Modern Biotechnology

Advances in science over many years account for what we know and are able to accomplish with modern biotechnology and food production. A brief review of genetics and biochemistry is useful in evaluating the role of biotechnology in our food supply.

Proteins are composed of various combinations of amino acids. They are essential for life—both for an organism's structure, and for the metabolic reactions necessary for the organism to function. The number, kind, and order of amino acids in a specific protein determine its properties. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), which is present in all the cells of all organisms, contains the information needed for cells to put amino acids in the correct order. In other words, DNA contains the genetic blueprint determining how cells in all living organisms store, duplicate, and pass information about protein structure from generation to generation.

In 1953 James Watson and Francis Crick published their discovery that the molecular structure of DNA is a double helix, for which they, along with Maurice H. F. Wilkins, won a Nobel Prize in 1962. Two strands of DNA are composed of pairs of chemicals—adenine (A) and thymine (T); and guanine (G) and cytosine (C). A segment of DNA that encodes enough information to make one protein is called a gene. It is the order of DNA's base pairs that determines specific genes that code for specific proteins, which determines individual traits.

By 1973 scientists had found ways to isolate individual genes, and by the 1980s, scientists could transfer single genes from one organism to another. This process, much like traditional crossbreeding, allows transferred traits to pass to future generations of the recipient organism.

One Goal, Two Approaches

The objective of plant biotechnology and traditional crop breeding is the same: to improve the characteristics of seed so that the resulting plants have new, desirable traits. The primary difference between the two techniques is how the objective is achieved. Plant breeders have used traditional tools such as hybridization and crossbreeding to improve the quality and yield of their crops with a resulting wide variability in our foods. These traditional techniques resulted in several benefits, such as greatly increased crop production and improved quality of food and feed crops, which has proven beneficial to growers and producers as well as consumers through a reduction of the cost of food for consumers. However, traditional plant breeding techniques do have some limits; only plants from the same or similar species can be interbred. Because of this, the sources for potential desirable traits are finite. In addition, the process of crossbreeding is very time-consuming, at times taking ten to twelve years to achieve the desired goal—and complications can arise because all genes of the two "parent" plants are combined together. This means that both the desirable and undesirable traits may be expressed in the new plant. It takes a significant amount of time to remove the unwanted traits by "back crossing" the new plant over many generations to achieve the desired traits. These biotech methods can preserve the unique genetic composition of some crops while allowing the addition or incorporation of specific genetic traits, such as resistance to disease. However, development of transgenic crop varieties still requires a significant investment of time and resources.

The Many Applications of Biotechnology

Since the earliest times, people have been using simple forms of biotechnology to improve their food supply, long before the discovery of the structure of DNA by Watson and Crick. For example, grapes and grains were modified through fermentation with microorganisms and used to make wine, beer, and leavened bread. Modern biotechnology, which uses the latest molecular biology technology, allows us to more directly modify our foods. Whereas traditional plant breeding mixes tens of thousands of genes, biotechnology allows for the transfer of a single gene, or a few select genes or traits. The most common uses thus far have been the introduction of traits that help farmers simplify crop production, reduce pesticide use in some crops, and increase profitability by reduction of crop losses to weeds, insect damage, or disease.

In general, the early applications of crop biotechnology have been at points in our food supply chain where economic benefit can be gained. The following are examples of modern biotechnology where success has been achieved or is in progress.

Insect resistance. Crop losses from insect pests can cause devastating financial loss for growers and starvation in developing countries. In the United States and Europe, thousands of tons of pesticides are used to control insects. Using modern biotechnology, scientists and farmers have removed the need for the use of some of these chemicals. Insect-protected plants are developed by introducing a gene into a plant that produces a specific protein from a naturally occurring soil organism. Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) is one of many bacteria naturally present in soil. This bacterium is known to be lethal to certain classes of insects, and only those organisms. The Bt protein produced by the bacterium is the natural insecticide. Growing foods, such as Bt corn, can help eliminate the application of chemical pesticides and reduce the cost of bringing a crop to market. The introduction of insect-protected crops such as Bt cotton has allowed reduced use of chemical pesticides. This suggests that genetically engineered food crops can also be grown with reduced use of pesticides, a development that would be welcomed by the general public.

Herbicide tolerance. Every year, farmers must battle weeds that compete with their crops for water, nutrients, sunlight, and space. Weeds can also harbor insects and disease. Farmers routinely use two or more different chemicals on a crop to remove both grass and broadleaf weeds. In recent years new "broad-spectrum" chemicals have been discovered that control all these weeds and therefore require only one application of one chemical to the crop. To provide crops with a defense against these nonselective herbicides, genes have been added to plants that render the chemicals inactive—but only in the new, herbicide-resistant crop. Many benefits come from these crops, including better and more flexible weed control for farmers, increased use of conservation tillage (involving less working of the soil and thereby decreasing erosion), and promoting the use of herbicides that have a better environmental profile (that is, that are less toxic to nontarget organisms).

Disease resistance. Many viruses, fungi, and bacteria can cause plant diseases, resulting in crop damage and loss. Researchers have had great success in developing crops that are protected from certain types of plant viruses by introducing DNA from the virus into the plant. In essence, the plants are "vaccinated" against specific diseases. Because most plant viruses are spread by insects, farmers can use fewer insecticides and still have healthy crops and high yields.

Drought tolerance and salinity tolerance. As the world population grows and industrial demand for water supplies increases, the amount of water used to irrigate crops will become more expensive or unavailable. Creating plants that can withstand long periods of drought or high salt content in soil and groundwater will help overcome these limitations. Although genetically engineered crops with enhanced drought tolerance are not yet commercially available, significant research advances are pointing the way to creating these in the future.

Food applications. Research into applications of biotechnology to food production covers a broad range of possibilities. Examples of food applications also include increasing the nutrient content of foods where deficiencies are widespread in the population. For example, researchers have successfully increased the amount of iron and beta-carotene (the precursor to vitamin A in humans) in carrots and "golden rice"—a biotech rice developed by the Rockefeller Foundation that may help provide children in developing nations with the vitamin A they need to reduce the risk of vision problems or blindness.

Another example of food biotechnology is crops modified for higher monounsaturated fatty acid levels in the vegetable to make them more "heart-healthy." Efforts are also under way to slow the ripening of some crops, such as bananas, tomatoes, peppers, and tropical fruits, to allow time to ship them from farms to large cities while preserving taste and freshness.

Other possible food applications for which pioneering research is under way include grains and nuts where naturally occurring allergens have been reduced or eliminated. Potatoes with higher starch content also promise to have the added potential to reduce the fat content in fried potato products, such as french fries and potato chips. This is because the starch replaces water in the potatoes, causing less fat to be absorbed into the potato when it is fried.

Edible vaccines. Vaccines that are commonly used today are often costly to produce and require cold storage conditions when shipped from their point of manufacture in the developed world to points of use in the developing world. Research has shown that protein-based vaccines can be designed into edible plants so that simple eating of the material leads to oral immunization. This technology will allow local production of vaccines in developing countries, reduction of vaccine costs, and promotion of global immunization programs to prevent infectious diseases.

Global food needs. The world population has topped six billion people and is predicted to double by 2050. Ensuring an adequate food supply for this booming population is going to be a major challenge in the years to come. Biotechnology can play a critical role in helping to meet the growing need for high-quality food produced in more sustainable ways.

What Are Consumers Saying?

Crops modified by biotechnology (also known as genetically modified or GM crops) have been the subjects of public discussion in recent years. Considerable public discussion may be attributed to the public's interest in the safety and usefulness of new products. Although biotechnology has a strongly supported safety record, some groups and organizations abroad and in the United States have expressed a desire for stronger regulation of biotechnology-derived products than of similar foods derived from older technology. The assessment of the need for new regulation is related to an understanding of the science itself, as was detailed in the sections above; this is a continual process of development.

Consumer acceptance is critical to the success of biotechnology around the world. Attitudes toward biotechnology vary from country to country because of cultural and political differences, in addition to many other influences.

In the United States, the majority of consumers are supportive about the potential benefits biotechnology can bring. Generally, U.S. consumers feel they would like to learn more about the topic, and respond favorably when they are given accurate, science-based information on the subject of food biotechnology.

Regulatory Oversight

Three government agencies monitor the development and testing of biotechnology crops: the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). These agencies work together to ensure that biotechnology foods are safe to eat, safe to grow, and safe for the environment.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA): Lead agency in assessing safety for human consumption of plants or foods that have been altered using biotechnology, including foods that have improved nutritional profiles, food quality, or food processing advantages.

U.S. Department of Agriculture: Provides regulatory oversight to ensure that new plant varieties pose no harm to production agriculture or to the environment. USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) governs the field testing of biotechnology crops to determine how transgenic varieties perform relative to conventional varieties, and the balance between risk and reward.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): EPA provides regulatory and safety oversight for new plant varieties, such as insect-protected biotechnology crops. EPA regulates any pesticide that may be present in food to provide a high margin of safety for consumers.

Genetically Modified Organisms: Health and Environmental Concerns

There is really little doubt that, at least in principle, the development of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) can offer many advantages. Genetically modified organisms have included crops that are largely of benefit to farmers and not clearly of broad public value. Plans for development of GMOs include foods that have far greater nutritional and even pharmaceutical benefit; crops that can grow in regions that currently cannot provide enough food for subsistence; and foods that are more desirable in terms of traits that the public wants. The market forces that largely determine which products are developed are complicated, and there are important trade-offs: the traits that may be needed to feed a starving world are different from the traits farmers in the United States want, and both may differ from the characteristics the paying public supports.

Most criticisms of genetic engineering focus on food safety and environmental impacts. What impact will GMOs have on the health of those who eat them? Will some individuals develop allergic reactions? The new technology makes it possible to cross species barriers with impunity. A scare over StarLink corn is instructive of this kind of problem. "Bt corn," a common GMO, includes a gene from Bacillus thuringienis, which produces a pesticide that kills the European corn borer. StarLink is a variety of Bt corn that includes a protein (Cry9C) that does not break down as easily in the body, which increases the risk of allergic reactions in some people (though there are no verified cases of this). StarLink corn was approved for animal feed but not for human consumption. Unfortunately it is difficult if not impossible to keep the food supply for animals and humans separate. The result has been the discovery of small amounts of StarLink corn throughout the food supply. (Of course, there is also the question whether a small trace of Cry9C in a fast-food taco is the greatest health problem involved in such a meal.)

A second set of concerns arises over the environmental impact of GMOs. There are several different concerns. First, there are worries about gene flow. The same genes that may one day make it possible for plants to grow in poor, salty soil or in relatively arid regions could create an ecological nightmare by allowing these crops to spread beyond their normal range as a result of the gene(s) that have been transferred into the crop itself, or if those same genes should be introduced to other plants. This can happen through outcrossing between the GMOs and closely related plants. For example, GM wheat could cross with native grasses in South America to alter the makeup of the ecosystem and potentially create "super weeds," a possibility that has raised concerns in the "Wheat Belt" of the United States and elsewhere. Even in the absence of gene flow, the GMOs themselves could become super weeds (or the animal equivalent) as a result of the traits that make them better suited to new habitats. The environmental trade-off for technology that makes it possible to produce sustainable agriculture or aquaculture in regions where it cannot "naturally" flourish is the significant risk of loss of biodiversity and the unchecked spread of plants or animals into unintended regions. (The argument is made, however, that biotechnology can be used to increase yields on the land that is currently used for agricultural production, allowing nonfarm land to be retained as forests and reserves and thereby conserve biodiversity.)

In addition to these concerns over the ecosystem and the creation of superweeds, there is a worry over the potential impact of some GMOs on nontarget organisms. Cornell University researchers found that pollen from Bt corn could kill the larvae of monarch butterflies that ingested it. This raised the fear that these engineered crops could kill butterflies and other nontarget organisms in addition to the corn borer. The consensus from subsequent field research is that Bt corn does not pose a major threat to monarch butterfly populations—loss of habitat in Mexico, where the butterflies overwinter, is a more serious threat. Nevertheless, the Bt corn–butterfly issue showed that it is not always possible to predict the consequences that may arise from the introduction of these crops.

Genetically engineered microorganisms present even greater environmental and health concerns. It will soon be possible to engineer bacteria and viruses to produce deadly pathogens. This could well open a new era in biological weapons in addition to the environmental problems that could result from the release of organisms into the environment. The environmental assessment of the widespread introduction of engineered microorganisms has only barely begun to receive attention (Cho et al., 1999).

These concerns are exacerbated by some inadequacies in the regulatory framework for GMOs. There is a growing sense that the Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Environmental Protection Agency are not sufficiently rigorous or consistent in how they regulate GMOs and that there should be a single set of standards, including a mandatory environmental assessment. The opposition to GMOs in Europe is much more widespread than in the United States, and the single most important factor for the differences between European and American attitudes is the level of confidence in the regulatory institutions that protect the food supply. After "mad cow disease," Europeans do not trust their governments to provide safe food. A similar loss in confidence among U.S. consumers could have a similar effect. In spite of these concerns, however, there have so far been no documented food safety problems resulting from the introduction of GM crops in the mid-1990s and their large-scale consumption by the American public. There have also been no ecological disasters, although the time since their introduction has been too brief for the absence of disaster to be very meaningful. In some crops, notably in Bt cotton, there have been significant reductions in the use of pesticides.

David Magnus with contributions by Peter Goldsbrough

Bibliography

Arntzen, Charles J. "Agricultural Biotechnology." In Nutrition and Agriculture. United Nations Administrative Committee on Coordination, Subcommittee on Nutrition, World Health Organization. September 2000

Borlaug, Norman E. "Feeding a World of 10 Billion People: The Miracle Ahead." Lecture given at De Moutfort University, Leicester, England, May 1997. http://agriculture.tusk.edu/biotech/monfort2html International Food Information Council (IFIC). "Food Biotechnology Overview." Washington, D.C.: February 1998. Available at http://ific.org.

Cho, Mildred, David Magnus, Art Caplan, and Daniel McGee. "Ethical Considerations in Synthesizing a Minimal Genome." Science 286 (10 December 1999): 2087–2090.

—Charles J. Arntzen; Susan Pitman; Katherine Thrasher

The application for industrial purposes of scientific, biological principles. The most modern examples are the use of recombinant DNA technology and genetic engineering to manufacture a wide variety of biologically useful substances such as vaccines and hormones by expression of cloned genes in various host cell systems including bacteria, yeast and insect cells.

• FBAE Biotech Blog Agricultural biotechnology thoughts and commentary.

Add your blog to the Answers Directory.