Medical brain Notes 9

  Introduction to Biotechnology The  Chambers Science and Technology Dictionary  defines biotechnology as ‘the use of organisms or their components in industrial or commercial processes, which can be aided by the techniques of genetic manipulation in developing e.g. novel plants for agriculture or industry.’ Despite the inclusiveness of this definition, the biotechnology sector is still often seen as largely medical or phar-maceutical in nature, particularly amongst the general public. While to some extent the huge research budgets of the drug companies and the widespread familiarity of their products makes this understandable, it does distort the full picture and somewhat unfairly so. However, while therapeutic instruments form, in many respects, the ‘acceptable’ face of biotechnology, elsewhere the science is all too frequently linked with unnatural interference. While the agricultural, industrial and environmental applications of biotechnology are potentially very grea...

  The Role of Environmental Biotechnology While pharmaceutical biotechnology represents the glamorous end of the market, environmental applications are decidedly more in the Cinderella mould. The reasons for this are fairly obvious. The prospect of a cure for the many diseases and conditions currently promised by gene therapy and other biotech-oriented medical miracles can potentially touch us all. Our lives may, quite literally, be changed. Environmental biotechnology, by contrast, deals with far less apparently dramatic topics and, though their importance, albeit different, may be every bit as great, their direct relevance is far less readily appreciated by the bulk of the population. Cleaning up contamination and dealing rationally with wastes is, of course, in everybody’s best interests, but for most people, this is simply addressing a problem which they would rather had not existed in the first place. Even for industry, though the benefits may be noticeable on the balance shee...

  The Scope for Use There are three key points for environmental biotechnology interventions, namely in the manufacturing process, waste management or pollution control, as shown in Figure 1.1.  Accordingly, the range of businesses to which environmental biotechnology has potential relevance is almost limitless. One area where this is most apparent is with regard to waste. All commercial operations generate waste of one form or another and for many, a proportion of what is produced is biodegradable. With disposal costs rising steadily across the world, dealing with refuse constitutes an increasingly high contribution to overheads. Thus, there is a clear incentive for all businesses to identify potentially cost-cutting approaches to waste and  employ them where possible.  Changes in legislation throughout Europe, the US and elsewhere, have combined to drive these issues higher up the political agenda and biological methods of waste treatment have gained far greater ac...

  The Market for Environmental Biotechnology The UK’s Department of Trade and Industry estimated that 15 – 20% of the global environmental market in 2001 was biotech-based, which amounted to about 250 – 300 billion US dollars and the industry is projected to grow by as much as ten-fold over the following five years. This expected growth is due to greater acceptance of biotechnology for clean manufacturing applications and energy production, together with increased landfill charges and legislative changes in waste management which also alter the UK financial base favourably with respect to bioremediation. Biotechnology-based methods are seen as essential to help meet European Union (EU) targets for biowaste diversion from land-fill and reductions in pollutants. Across the world the existing regulations on environmental pollution are predicted to be more rigorously enforced, with more stringent compliance standards implemented. All of this is expected to stimulate the sales of biotec...

  Modalities and local influences Another of the key factors affecting the practical uptake of environmental biotechnology is the effect of local circumstances. Contextual sensitivity is almost certainly the single most important factor in technology selection and repre-sents a major influence on the likely penetration of biotech processes into the marketplace. Neither the nature of the biological system, nor of the application method itself, play anything like so relevant a role. This may seem somewhat unexpected at first sight, but the reasons for it are obvious on further inspection. While the character of both the specific organisms and the engineering remain essentially the same irrespective of location, external modalities of economics, legislation and custom vary on exactly this basis. Accordingly, what may make abundant sense as a biotech intervention in one region or country, may be totally unsuited to use in another. In as much as it is impossible to discount the wider gl...