"Biotechnology means any technological application that uses biological systems, living organisms, or derivatives thereof, to make or modify products or processes for specific use."
Biotechnology combines disciplines like genetics, molecular biology, biochemistry, embryology and cell biology, which are in turn linked to practical disciplines like chemical engineering, information technology, and robotics.
Biotechnology has applications in four major industrial areas, including health care, crop production and agriculture, non food uses of crops (e.g. biodegradable plastics, vegetable oil, biofuels), and environmental uses. For example, one application of biotechnology is the directed use of organisms for the manufacture of organic products (examples include beer and milk products). Another example is using naturally present Bacteria by the mining industry in Bioleaching. Biotechnology is also used to recycle, treat waste, clean up sites contaminated by industrial activities like Bioremediation, etc.
Bioinformatics and Computational Biology involve the use of techniques including Applied mathematics, Informatics, Statistics, Computer science, Artificial intelligence, Chemistry, Biochemistry, Biology, biological problems usually on the Molecular level. Research in computational biology often overlaps with Systems biology. Major research efforts in the field include Sequence alignment, Gene finding, Genome assembly, Protein structural alignment, Protein structure prediction, Gene expression, Protein-protein interactions and the modeling of Evolution.
Saturday, June 2, 2007
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