The first known use of the word "biotechnology" was in 1917 by a Hungarian agricultural engineer, Karl Ereky. He used it to describe a system for raising pigs on sugar beets as their primary food source. Biotechnology was defined by Ereky as
"all lines of work by which products are produced from raw materials with the aid of living things".
While most industries use mechanical devices - machines - to make things, biotechnology uses living organisms to make products of economic value. You can use this definition for most agricultural production, although "farming' is a more acceptable and widely understood term for this activity. Apart from the traditional cultivation of crops and raising of livestock, there are a number of other older technologies that can also be characterised as biotechnology:
Fermentation: brewing beer, wine-making, baking bread. All of these food processing systems rely on yeast to alter the properties of a raw material. In the case of brewing and wine-making, yeasts convert the sugars in grains and grapes into alcohol. In bread, yeasts produce carbon dioxide to make the bread rise and soften the dough.
Sewage treatment: processes toxic domestic and industrial waste into less harmful materials - H2O & sludge. Organic wastes are degraded by the action of a complex community of microbes. Sewage treatment facilities provide an optimised environment for these organisms to process the waste, while at the same time allowing containment and monitoring of the process.
These are older technologies that have been around for a long time, and not what you first think of for biotechnology. These certainly don't have the glamorous (at least I think of it in terms of glamor!), high-tech image that is frequently associated with new technologies!
Some of the earliest industrial applications of biotechnology involved the production of ingredients to make explosives during the First World War. Supplies of these essential ingredients for production of munitions had been disrupted by naval blockades. Microbial fermentation tanks were used to convert readily available agricultural products into glycerol and acetone.
Similar fermentation systems were developed to grow microbes for the production of antibiotics. Large scale production of antibiotics was not possible until suitable fermentation systems were developed, and strains with higher yield of antibiotics were identified.
But the scope of biotechnology has been altered beyond this original vision by a series of developments in the life sciences. These developments center on the ability to:
This is the heart of the "biological revolution" that is going on at the moment. I use the term "revolution" deliberately, as these developments may have a similar impact as some of the other technological revolutions that have occurred in this millennium:
The 19th century and early 20th century saw the development of many mechanical devices, and the 20th century the era of chemicals and electronics. But in the 21st century we will likely see our understanding of biological processes put to greater use in changing how we live our lives.
Many different scientific fields are responsible for this biological revolution:
A newer definition of biotechnology from the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment reads:
"Any technique that uses living organisms to make or modify products, to improve plants or animals, or to develop microorganisms for specific purposes."
This class will focus on the areas related to agriculture - crops and livestock - but we will also talk about other areas in passing. So that we do not lose sight of some of the other areas where biotechnology-based developments are having a significant impact, here are some of the industries that are being impacted by these new technologies.
How important is biotechnology likely to become? Sales of biotechnology products by the year 2000 are estimated to be around $60 billion per year (just an estimate). Governments have emphasized research in this area - in Japan, biotechnology is a "strategic industry" targeted for growth and expansion. Many biotechnology companies have been started, especially in the US in the 1980s. There are now more than 900 biotechnology companies in US, more elsewhere. It is generally regarded that the US has a technological lead in this area, but other countires are also placing great emphasis on developing and expanding in this area.
Some of the first public offerings of shares in biotechnology companies on US stock markets were quite spectacular. In 1980 the price of shares in Genentech, one of the first biotech companies, rose from $35 to $89 in 20 minutes. This reflected not only the interest of investors in this technology, but also the activity of financial speculators eager to reap quick profits from this interest. In recent years there have been similar reactions to initial public offerings (IPOs) of shares in many Internet companies, e-business start-ups and the like.
However, products derived from biotechnology have been relatively slow to reach the market. But now some products of biotech revolution are available and many more are in the development pipeline. Examples of these products for agricultural use include:
A recent survey of global plantings of transgenic crops in 1999 has been prepared by Clive James of ISAAA.
One goal of this class is for you to understand how these products of biotechnology are made and the scientific principles that underlie this revolution.
I also want you to be able to assess the safety and merits of the various applications of this new technology. As with all new developments, there are many who think this technology is dangerous. For some it is unethical or immoral to tamper with the genetic material, they believe this will lead to a loss of our own "genetic privacy", and that no one has the right to own and patent either organisms or genes. Others question the environmental consequences of these developments, that it will lead to the development of more potent pests, create new health problems because of allergens and toxins, and reduce biodiversity. Yet others question the socioeconomic consequences of biotechnology, for example the promotion of "corporate" farming, and the effects on less developed countries.
We will examine some of these issues as we learn about the development of agricultural biotechnology in this class.