22. Biotechnology

22.1 Biotechnology - what is it?

Biotechnology refers to technological methods that make use of living organisms or their cells. Traditional biotechnology is everywhere. Even today, you have certainly been dealing with products of biotechnology. Fermentation and yeast are used to make cheese, yoghurts and bread, whereas microbes are used to make newsprint and enzymes are used to bleach denim.

Modern biotechnology includes the field of genetic engineering. In genetic engineering, for example, genes are transferred from one organism to another. The aim is to produce, for example, crops that can resist herbicides or withstand the cold better. Many drugs today are made with the help of microbes.

Biotechnology can help solve global problems. Its various applications are expected to help with the world's food shortages, the treatment of diseases in developing countries, the depletion of natural resources, energy production and the treatment of environmental pollution. The bioeconomy is likely to be a growing area of economic life in the future.

22.2 Functional foods

The grocery store has a rich selection of foods that are marketed for their health-promoting effects. These are called functional foods.

For example, so-called probiotic yogurts contain lactic acid bacteria, which are beneficial for intestinal function.

Other such functional foods are spreads with added blood cholesterol lowering sterols, or confectionery containing, for example, xylitol.

There is often a lack of research data on the health effects of functional foods.

Blueberry (pictured on the right) is an example of a functional food product. Blueberry is often added to food products such as yogurt because of its health benefits.

22.3 Fermentation

Many yeasts (unicellular fungi), bacteria, and molds are used in food production. The oldest application of biotechnology used by mankind is probably the fermentation of fruit juice into wine. Under suitable conditions, a yeast can cause sugar-containing liquid to ferment. Lactic acid bacteria are used in the production of yoghurts and cheeses, which, as they divide, ferment the milk appropriately.

Baking yeast is an example of biotechnology. It is a fungus that breaks down the sugars in bread dough and and makes the dough fluffy by producing carbon dioxide.

22.4 Basics of plant and animal breeding

The selective breeding of plants, i.e. changing the characteristics of plant varieties in the direction desired by people, has been a part of food production since the dawn of civilation. All cereals in cultivation today originate from a wild strain that was originally used by people and gradually transformed into a more productive, larger and faster-growing form.

Selective breeding is based on the hereditary modification of plant characteristics, i.e. the fact that plants differ from each other and therefore higher-yielding plants have produced better-yielding offspring. In selection-based breeding, those plants, which have given largest grains and the strongest stalks, have been selected for breeding. These plants have been crossbred with each other, producing more and more productive varieties.

However, selective plant breeding is relatively slow. Today, for example, plant tissue cultures make it possible to produce completely identical copies of a lucrative plant, i.e. to clone them. 

Scientists have learned to transfer genes from one organism to another. This genetic engineering brings new opportunities for plant breeding. For example, a gene that provides a supportive stem from another plant or a gene that allows the plant to use nutrients more efficiently can be transferred to a cereal plant. One can also dream of, for example, a tomato with potato tubers at its roots. Such foods, which have been produced by transferring genes from another plant, are called genetically modified foods.

22.5 Animal breeding

Apart from plants, people have also bred domestic animals. The selection has been made in the same way: by selecting individuals with good traits. In pets, such as dogs, a variety of characteristics related to appearance, shape or behavior have been selected. As a result, a great variety of different dog breeds have been developed.

There has also been a desire to develop useful properties in domestic and farm animals, such as milk production in cows, rapid muscle growth in beef animals or wool growth in sheep. In domestic animal breeding, the characteristics of individuals are accurately recorded, and a breeding bull that produces desirable offspring can have thousands of offspring. Artificial insemination with frozen sperm is most commonly used. Bovine individuals with good traits can be propagated even more efficiently by embryo transfer, where dozens of artificially fertilized embryos are produced and transferred to cows for development. Using genetic mapping, genes can be selected for breeding even more precisely.

22.6 GMO or genetically modified organisms

When genes from other species have been transferred to an organism, we are talking about a genetically modified organism, or GMO. Such inter-species gene transfer is described by a tomato to which a cold-tolerant gene has been transferred from flounder. Gene transfers can improve the resistance of crops to plant diseases, pests, unfavorable growing conditions and herbicides. No gene transfers have been performed in animal breeding, although gene transfer between animal species is possible. Animal cloning is possible, and several dozen animal species have been cloned around the world.

Dozens of genetically modified or GM plant varieties have been developed. The most important GM crops are corn, soybeans and rapeseed. These are already used quite extensively for both food and animal feed. The majority of soybeans grown in the world are already so-called GM soybean. However, animals raised with GM feed are not genetically modified, as the feed is broken down in the digestion of the animals. Genetically modified plant varieties have been called upon to help with world food shortages and the problem of hunger in people in developing countries. Developed in the 1990s, the so-called golden rice has a gene that produces a vitamin A precursor. Vitamin A deficiency causes blindness and underdevelopment.

On the other hand, GM seeds, as well as the fertilizers and pesticides needed to grow them, are protected by patents from multinational companies. The farmers who use them are completely dependent on the pricing and regulations of these companies.

There are strong opinions about the use of genetic engineering in food production. In order to be able to take a valid position, it is necessary to understand the principles of the function of genes and to know exactly the ecosystems in which genetically modified species are part of food chains.

22.7 Industrial applications of biotechnology

Biotechnology is also used in industry. Various microbes and enzymes are used to complete different industrial processes. Enzymes are biological compounds, usually proteins, that cause and enhance biological reactions. A wide variety of metabolic and digestive enzymes function in living cells and the human body. These same enzymes can also be produced on a large scale by microbes. They are widely used in food preparation, detergents and to replace toxic chemicals.

The dirt-removing properties of enzymes are used in laundry detergents, where they cause dirt to come off without hot water. In the treatment of domestic and industrial wastewater, the most important employees of the water treatment plant are microbes. They live in the wastewater, feed on organic matter (faeces and urine) and convert water-eutrophic nitrogen compounds back into atmospheric nitrogen (N2).

Microbes can also be used to clean oil accidents and to purify seawater. Microbes can also be used to clean soil from gasoline, wood preservatives or herbicides. In the mining industry, metals can be "removed" from rock with the help of microbes. 

Microbes can also be used to make biofuels. Microbes have been made to produce butanol (C4H10) from wood and industrial waste, which can be used as fuel for cars.

The use of molds in industry
Item Explanation
Jeans The appearance of stonewashed jeans is obtained by treating the jeans with the cellulase enzyme that cleaves the cotton fibers of Trichoderma mold.
Laundry detergents Mold cellulase enzymes improve the ability to remove dirt.
Olive oil Mold enzymes increase the amount of oil obtained from olives.
Soy sauce Soybeans are treated with mold, the enzymes of which break down soy.
Antibiotics Including the mold Penicillium.
Pharmaceutical and food products Genetically modified molds are used to produce cholesterol-lowering products and vitamins.

22.8 Medical applications of biotechnology

Medicine is an important field of application for biotechnology. Today, biotechnology makes it much faster and more reliable to identify the causes of diseases. Biotechnology can also be used to treat and cure diseases. 

Identifying diseases is easier and faster today than it was before. Microbes isolated from a patient sample can be grown in a culture dish and identified by their own specific characteristics such as colour and shape. In addition, the DNA of many disease-causing bacteria and viruses is known and can be identified through laboratory testing.

Once the disease-causing microbe has been identified, the disease it causes can be treated with, for example, antibiotics. Antibiotics are now produced in large quantities with the help of microbes. Vaccines produced from microbes have been developed to prevent viral diseases. Previously, vaccines were produced in animal cells, which was expensive and slow. Antimicrobial vaccines are also safer. Today, even edible vaccines are being developed in which the pathogen gene has been transferred to, for example, a tomato.

With the help of biotechnology and sub-genetic engineering, it is possible not only to identify pathogens such as viruses and bacteria, but also to detect diseases at the geneyic level. A blood sample can be used to examine an individual for a particular gene form or genetic defect that causes a certain disease. 

It is now possible to treat diseases caused by genetic defects with gene therapy. Gene therapy is an experimental technique that uses genes to treat or prevent disease. This technique may allow doctors to treat a disorder by inserting a gene into a patient's cells instead of using drugs or surgery. This can be done either by taking the patient's cells, culturing them in the laboratory and transfering the desired gene into them, or by injecting the harvested gene forms directly into the patient's tissue. Severe cancers or inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis can be treated with this method.

In the laboratory, it is possible to grow various tissues, such as skin or the eye's cornea. Stem cells can be used to compensate for tissue damage. Stem cell treatments are used to treat the neurological damage caused by Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, muscle damage and spinal cord injuries. Stem cells are able not only to change to any cell type, but also to divide. This makes it possible to cultivate them under precise laboratory conditions and direct them to grow into the desired cell type.

 

22.9 Video on the use of stem cells

Watch a video of a new bronchus being grown from a donor stem cell for a man with severe cancer.

The cells begin to differentiate inside a medium. Within a few days, the cells begin to resemble the bronchial tissue itself.

22.10 Fertility treatments

Many couples (1/6) are involuntarily childless. The reason may be in the reproductive system of either the woman or the man. Infertility treatments can be used to treat infertility. Hormone therapy can speed up the production of eggs or sperm. In artificial insemination, a doctor inserts sperm directly into a woman's cervix, fallopian tubes, or uterus.

Fallopian tube obstruction is a major cause of female infertility. Blocked fallopian tubes are unable to let the ovum and the sperm converge. When this is the case, in vitro fertilization (IVF) can be carried out. Oocyte production is accelerated by hormones and taken from the ovary through the abdominal coverings. They are fertilized with the father’s semen in a “test tube”.

Fertilized ova and embryos developed from them are grown in cell culture cabinets under strictly controlled conditions until the day of embryo transfer. After the embryo has formed, it is transferred to the woman's uterus. Extra embryos are frozen in storage. Hormone therapies are used in artificial insemination, and the success of the process is often uncertain. Therefore, frozen embryos are usually needed.

Infertility can also be caused by a lack of eggs or sperm. When this is the case, donated germ cells can be used.

22.11 Ethics

Ethics considers which things are good and fair. It also considers what we humans are entitled to and what obligations we have to each other and to nature. Most often, an ethical person asks awkward questions.

Quickly thought, the breeding of plants and animals sounds good and worthwhile merely as a means of helping humanity and improving the quality of life in the world.

However, when you start to think about the issue more closely, you can see that the cause of famine is not food shortages but poverty, which is not solved by breeding better-yielding plant varieties. For example, seeds of genetically modified high-yield cereals are patented to large companies, who can therefore determine their prices as they see fit. The high cost of genetic engineering affects the position of farmers. At the same time, global food production is concentrated in the hands of a few big businesses, out of the reach of democratic decision-making. Who is allowed to own inventions that benefit everyone?

Animal experiments have become even more painful, even though genetic engineering would also offer opportunities in research into the use of cell cultures. It is predicted that animal testing will become unnecessary in the 2030s. However, this cannot be achieved if governments, companies and researchers do not work together.

Even greater ethical dilemmas occur in medicine. New, more effective treatments are expensive. Who can afford them? Who gets them?

In gene therapy, new genes can be transferred to gametes, creating a new hereditary trait as a result of gene therapy. Can it lead to, for example, “factory production for custom babies” and thus “breeding”?

Fetal screening aims to find out the serious illnesses of a future child in advance. One may think that it is good to terminate a pregnancy if the child is suffering from a serious illness. But what is such a serious illness? When will non-musicality, or even gender, be considered a sufficient justification for termination?

Human clones may be produced in the future. The reason for cloning may be a selfish desire to have a child who meets all of their parents' wishes. Cloning is also very difficult and expensive. There are many failed experiments ahead of successful cloning.

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