IUPUI Department of Biology
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Introduction to Biotechnology 540
August 23, 2007

"Biotech is exciting as all heck, extremely risky, changing faster than teen fashions, and challenging to understand. But if you've got passion and time and can follow high school biology, it could just be for you." --- David Gardner, co-founder of The Motley Fool


1. Question: What is Biotechnology?

Answer: It depends on who you talk to! and who they work for..

 

Warning! The word Biotechnology has a range of meanings and connotations. It is also politically charged, and means different things to different people.

The meaning of the word biotechnology derives from the words: bios, life teuchos, tool logos, 'study of' or 'essence.'  
Thus the word literally means: "the study of tools from living things."1

Note that biology and technology are closely related but separate:

2. Some Definitions of Biotechnology:

Classic: The word "biotechnology" was first used in 1917 to describe processes using living organisms to make a product or run a process, such as industrial fermentations. (Robert Bud, The Uses of Life: A History of Biotechnology)

Warm and Fuzzy: Biotechnology began over 10,000 years ago when humans began to plant their own crops, domesticate animals, ferment juice into wine, make cheese, and leaven bread (AccesExcellence)

Webster's Unabridged: The aspect of technology concerned with the application of living organisms to meet the needs and ends of man.

"Bio.org": Biotechnology is a collection of technologies that capitalize on the attributes of cells, such as their manufacturing capabilities, and put biological molecules, such as DNA and proteins, to work for us ($ --> $$$). (Bio.org)

"Dot.gov": Biotechnology is the application of technologies, such as recombinant DNA techniques, biochemistry, molecular and cellular biology, genetics and genetic engineering, and cell fusion techniques, using living organisms, to manufacture products including antibiotics, insulin, and interferon, to improve plants or animals, to develop microorganisms for specific uses, to identify targets for pharmaceutical development, or to transform biological systems into useful processes and products. (National Science and Technology Council)

Definition for the purposes of Biology 540? I'll add these two additions :

Biotechnology is the applied use of genetic engineering, recombinant DNA techniques, and computer technology to understand and influence specific biological processes (detailed above in the Dot.gov example) related to meeting human needs.

 

Some of the technologies that fall under this definition:

Some specific examples of these technologies today:

3. Biotechnology and Society

"Society's views of biotechnology are closely tied to the perception of its goals. Seen as a way to develop life-saving medicines or cancertherapies, improving medical care, biotechnology is regarded by most of us as a good thing. But many people worry that this powerful technology will be mis-used or get out of hand - genetic discrimination, cloning humans, 'eugenics', unsafe food." (2)


Compare: Greenpeace "Corn Grenade" vs. Monsanto "Safe as Baby Shampoo"


The "Dr. Evil" definition questions "Will the artificial creation of cloned, chimeric and transgenic animals mean the end of nature and the substitution of a 'bio-industrial world'? Will the mass release of genetically engineered life forms into the environment cause catastrophic genetic pollution and irreversible damage to the biosphere? What are the consequences of reducing the world's gene pool to patented intellectual property controlled exclusively by a handful of life-science corporations?" (Jeremy Rifkin, President of the Foundation on Economic Trends and often vocal opponent of biotechnology; in The Biotech Century, 1998)

"Honestly, throw me a -- bone here. What do we have?"


4. And keep in mind: A Biotechnology Company is a Business

A Biotechnology company may have the ultimate goal of developing life-saving medicines, new diagnostics, or develop better crops, but...

 

5. Biotechnology Industry Facts =Click here for more Stats, Charts and Graphs

 



6. Is there also an element of social responsibility in biotechnology?

In 1970, Milton Friedman (Nobel Prize in Economics, 1976) wrote an NYTimes Magazine article whose title pretty much summed up the main point: "The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits."saying that

"The one and only one social responsibility of business [is] to increase profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud."

This sounds fine if the business in questions is, say, making xerox machines, but what if it is a company making a drug to treat AIDS or to alleviate anemia? What if it a company that develops and markets genetically modified grain to third world countries?

Compare: Whole Foods, Dell Computers, Microsoft, Walmart, Amgen, Eli Lilly, or McDonalds = who are their "stakeholders" with interests in success of the company?

 

A new idea: a non-for-profit pharmaceutical company: OneWorld Health, funded in part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is leading the ' development, testing and manufacture of new drugs against infectious diseases that threaten millions in the undeveloped world'. (NYTimes)

 

We will discuss to what extent social responsibility should be the case, is the case, or must be the case that compels a Biotech company to consider the other "shareholders" when making its business decisions.

 

 

7. We have ushered in "The Biotech Century"

A Final Thought: "Great economic changes in history occur when a number of technological and social forces come together to create a new Operational Matrix. After more than 40 years of running on parallel tracks, the information and life sciences have fused into a single technological and economic force. The fusion of genetic engineering and computer technology, in just the last 10 years, has produced the seminal events of our age and is likely to change our world more radically than any other technological revolution in history. The Industrial Revolution has come to an end. The Biotech Century has begun." (Jeremy Rifkin, The Biotech Century, 1998)

Also put another way in the The Motley Fool article : It's the Revolution, Baby !