Lesson 1 of 11 · 6 min
What biotechnology is
NCERT §9 (chapter introduction)
Day one of Kavya's summer internship at a biotech lab in Hyderabad. At the door, the supervisor asks her to define the word on the building's signboard. Kavya hesitates.
The lesson in notes
In short
Biotechnology covers techniques that use living organisms, or enzymes taken from them, to make products and run processes useful to people.
In that broad sense, curd, bread and wine, all made with microbes, are biotechnology too.
Today the word is used more narrowly for processes that use genetically modified organisms to do such things on a larger scale.
Other techniques also count: IVF that produces a 'test-tube' baby, making a gene synthetically and putting it to use, building a DNA vaccine, and repairing a faulty gene.
The European Federation of Biotechnology (EFB) gives a definition that covers both the traditional and the modern molecular kind: natural science brought together with organisms, cells, their parts and molecular analogues to yield products and services.