Marshaling Technology for Development Proceedings of a Symposium (1995) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
Technological Trends and Applications in Biotechnology
Technological Trends and Applications in Biotechnology
Pages 97-127
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 97... ...
to make or modify products, to improve plants or animals, or to develop microorganisms for specific uses."2 The "new" biotechnology has been defined by the U.S. government as "the industrial use of rDNA, cell fusion, and novel bioprocessing techniques."3 This being said, the definition that in the long run may be the most descriptive relative to the world economy was produced by Vivian Moses and corporate biotechnology pioneer Ronald Cape: "making money with biology."4 Biotechnology already has been employed successfully to manufacture new medicines, improve agricultural production, and produce drugs from metabolites of marine organisms, and it shows great promise in such other areas as remediating environmental pollution.
|
From page 98... ...
The first industrial use of a pure culture of a bacterium was accomplished by Chaim Weizmann in 1917 when he developed the fermentation of cornstarch by the bacterium Clostridium acetobutylicum, thereby producing acetone for explosives manufacture. Gregor Mendel, an Austrian monk whose studies on the pea plant elucidated inheritance of traits via hereditary factors, conducted seminal work in genetics in 1865.
|
From page 99... ...
biotechnology: an average of 90 companies were formed annually, for a total of 631 companies established during this period.iS In 1981, the first U.S.-approved biotechnology product reached consumers: a monoclonal antibody-based diagnostic test kit. The following year, the first recombinant DNA pharmaceutical, Genentech's Humulin (recombinant human insulin)
|
From page 100... ...
Poor economic markets and policy questions in the United States held down the number of companies formed in 1994, but instead of being in a downturn, the U.S. biotechnology industry may be maturing, to eventually take on a new role in the global economy.
|
From page 101... ...
The United States is not the sole benefactor of biotechnology growth. In 1993, 386 biotechnology companies were located in Europe, most in Great Bntain, Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands (Figure 2~.20 From 1986 to 1992, about $657 million was pumped by venture capitalists into the European biotechnology industry.
|
From page 102... ...
In the Far East, the Hong Kong Institute of Biotechnology, under the auspices of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, was established with the help of overseas Chinese scientists.24 Hong Kong also has a Biotechnology Research Institute. Of the many biotechnology-related research departments and institutes in the People's Republic of China, one of the oldest and best known is the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry.25 The International Vaccine Institute being established in South Korea is receiving financial assistance from the United Nations Development Fund and the Japanese government.26 Thailand's National Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, which has a marine biotechnology laboratory, was begun with support from the U.S.
|
From page 103... ...
biotechnology industry, increased its sales by 81 percent in 1993, totaling $70 billion.32 This segment comprises 10 percent of the Canadian industry. Biomedical Medical biotechnology mainly includes recombinant drugs and enzyme-mediated diagnostic kits, but the rational design of drugs, where a drug is modeled to fit a particular molecule, yielding a limited response that can result in control of the disease process, has become a significant part of this field.
|
From page 104... ...
, and cholera, are being pursued actively and will have an immediate impact on global health.36 Although new vaccines and vaccine combinations could improve the health of many children worldwide,37 a recent study showed that the world vaccine market stands at a mere $3 billion,38 a relatively insignificant value when compared to the $1.2 billion world sales of just one new biotechnology drug, recombinant human erythropoietin (Amgen's Epogen) .39 Drug delivery systems are an important segment of the biomedical component of the biotechnology industry.40 New methods of administering vaccinesby injection, intra-nasally by spray, time-release methods, and others still under development and even drugs, could revolutionize health care in developing nations and in poor or rural communities in developed countries.4i
|
From page 105... ...
In Africa,42 Asia, Central and South America,43 and the Middle East,44 development of transgenic plants, biological pest control, tissue culture techniques for agriculture, microbial products for nutrient cycling, pathogen diagnostics for crops, and genetic mapping of tropical crops are major concerns. In developed nations, the term value added is used to denote the economic value of agricultural biotechnology products.
|
From page 106... ...
Department of Agriculture and University of Wisconsin inserted a gene for green fluorescent protein, derived from the jellyfish, Aequorea Victoria, into orange tree cells.59 This is a unique melding of agricultural and marine biotechnology and is an early example of more unique genetic introductions to come. Much of the improvement in crops depends on improved plant tissue culture techniques and techniques for plant micropropagation.
|
From page 107... ...
Thus it is essential that simple diagnostic tests be developed for early detection of disease. Marine Biotechnology Marine biotechnology, which represents a small segment of the biotechnology industry in the United States, approximately 85 companies or about 7 percent of all biotechnology companies has applications in medicine, agriculture, materials science, natural products chemistry, and bioremediation.
|
From page 108... ...
(a Troy, N.Y., biotechnology company specializing in vaccines) have produced a genetically engineered vaccine against Japanese encephalitis in swine, using Vaccinia virus and canarypox virus,60 that is now undergoing field tests.
|
From page 109... ...
Some of the aromatic compounds, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) , and other substances can be removed using genetically engineered microorganisms (GEMs)
|
From page 110... ...
Anaerobic wastewater treatment employing methanogenic bacteria that produce methane as a byproduct83 may be especially useful where an affordable supply of energy, the methane gas, is needed. The environmental test kit market is growing as kits become smaller and easier to use and portable field testing equipment, such as ion chromatographs, becomes available.
|
From page 111... ...
These plants have added potential as biofuel and to remediate toxic wastewater.92 Nonagricultural Marine Biotechnology The oceans represent the last great frontier for the discovery of new materials, medicines, and foods. Marine biotechnology can be applied in many areas outside those related to food production.93 Marine natural products are applicable in fields as far ranging as molecular biology and bioremediation, to adhesives and pharmaceuticals.
|
From page 112... ...
Energy Production Although a relatively minor consideration for developed nations at this time, energy production from biological waste products will prove important in the future, at first for developing nations, and later for those countries that no longer can afford to depend on petroleum products.94 Production of methane from biogas digesters can be carried out on a local or industrial scale. A variety of hexose sugars can be used for the fermentation production of ethanol, but major sources are sugarcane, maize, wood, cassava, sorghum, Jerusalem artichoke, and grains.
|
From page 113... ...
Concerns were expressed that people who drank milk produced by BST-treated cows would be affected by the hormone and that these cows would be more likely to develop an infectious mastitis, requiring antibiotic treatment and thereby adding antibiotics to the milk supply. Although it has been concluded by the FDA and othersi°5 that BST is safe, an economic consequence of treating more than 800,000 of the 9.5 million cows in the United States with the hormone has been an increase in milk production and a decrease in milk prices.~06 For plants, it is feared that genetically engineered crops will become weeds or will transfer the introduced genes to native crops, which, in turn, would become weeds.~07 Another concern is that the genetically engineered crop itself may become a pest.~°8 Other fears are that plants genetically engineered for virus resistance will cause the emergence of new viral pathogens that could affect other crops, that plants genetically engineered to produce toxins may inadvertently cause illness or death in animals feeding on them, and that engineered plants may out-compete wild plant species, altering habitats and affecting other species within those habitats.~09 To allay fears and guarantee that genetically modified organisms are employed responsibly, field testing should be done safely so that GMOs pose little or no risk; ~ id indiscriminate field testing of GMOs should be discouraged.
|
From page 114... ...
Training programs in tissue culture and micropropagation techniques are being carried out in Costa Rica and also would be beneficial to the Colombian cut-flower industry. The products of medical biotechnology are most likely to be of immediate benefit to developing nations, especially vaccines against the major scourges of the less-developed world such as malaria, hepatitis, dengue fever, HIV, and tuberculosisii9; the diagnostics and drugs needed to treat endemic diseases and highly infectious diseases; and the drugs and technologies that will have the widest range of applicability to increase the health of the populace.
|
From page 115... ...
If a U.S. company began to produce a genetically engineered pyrethrum product, Kenya's $75 million annual trade in the material much of which is derived from plant micropropagation-might be destroyed.~27
|
From page 116... ...
Property Rights and Biological Prospecting There are fears, often well founded, within the chemical and biotechnology industries that their patented materials will not be protected in developing nations.~29 Some believe that international agreements, such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) , will help to assuage these fears.~30 Others see GATT as imposing systems that benefit nations in the North at the expense of the people of nations in the South.~3i This being said, it is a fact that the world's tropical nations possess rich biotas that include especially valuable sources of medically active metabolites and natural products.
|
From page 117... ...
Recently, a group of international Pew Charitable Trust scholars met to write ethical guidelines for bioaccessing that cover the behavior of and interactions with scientists, gene banks, and intergovernmental organizations. The guidelines propose that scientists treat indigenous peoples with respect, have local people serve as co-researchers, and ensure that the local communities receive equitable compensation for any products derived from locally collected and documented plant, microorganism, or animal-derived resources.
|
From page 118... ...
There is concern that biotechnology-based products may lead to pressure on consumers to purchase value-added products they may not need. The Rural Advancement Foundation International worries that the addition of genetically engineered human proteins, produced by transgenic cows, into infant formula may lead the infant formula industry to undertake aggressive marketing techniques, especially in developing countries.~46 Other questions about safety and efficacy revolve around new medical technologies.
|
From page 119... ...
If, for example, difficulties are encountered in delivering agricultural products to market, no change in the qualities of those products will overcome the infrastructural problems. In other words, there is no reason to introduce genetically engineered apples that ship better in a region where the apples rot on the trees because they cannot be shipped to market.
|
From page 120... ...
Marine biotechnology programs and aquaculture not only will provide food for the table, but also can develop products from natural resources. Vaccines and pharmaceuticals that improve public health and decrease infant mortality, as well as test kits that permit screening of large proportions of at-risk populations for transmissible, even hereditary, disease will be welcomed into the markets of developing nations.
|
From page 121... ...
R Nout, "Upgrading Traditional Biotechnological Processes," in Applications of Biotechnology to Traditional Fermented Foods (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1991)
|
From page 122... ...
U.S. Department of Agriculture, "Marine Biotechnology and Aquaculture," draft report, USDA, Washington, D.C., February 7, 1994.
|
From page 123... ...
Dwyer, "Development of Genetically Engineered Microorganisms and Testing of Their Fate and Activity in Microcosms," in Proceedings of the Second International Symposium on the Biosafety Results of Field Tests of Genetically Modified Plants and Microorganisms, Goslar, Germany, May 11-14, 1992, ed.
|
From page 124... ...
Watanabe, "Thermophilic Biodigestion Yields a Keratinase Enzyme," Genetic Engineering News 12 (1992)
|
From page 125... ...
June Fessenden MacDonald (Ithaca, N.Y.: National Agricultural Biotechnology Council, 1993)
|
From page 126... ...
Anonymous, "Biotechnology Company Will Sell Bio-engineered Human Proteins to Infant Formula Manufacturers," RAFI Communique, June 1993.
|
From page 127... ...
154. National Research Council, Plant Biotechnology Research for Developing Countries (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1990)
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.