Biotechnology Toolbox
To gain a different perspective on how biotech products are made, it helps to think about the biotechnology toolbox. It's filled with many different kinds of living cells and their component molecules, and different ways to use them.
Because there are millions of different species of plants, animals, and microorganisms in the world, each having cells and molecules with unique characteristics, there are a lot of potential tools in this toolbox!
This is why biotechnology is so powerful and can be applied in so many different ways to so many different processes.
There are three basic kinds of tools:
- Working with cells, the smallest unit of life
- Working with proteins, one type of molecule found in cells
- Working with genes, the molecules responsible for inheritance
This is a difficult question, because biotechnology is not just one technology, but many. As is evident from the wide variety of industry sectors involved with biotechnology, the range of products being produced is wide and varied:
- A new way to cure cancer
- Plastic from corn instead of petroleum
- Microorganisms that clean up oil spills
- Drought-resistant crops
- Ethanol (fuel) from fermentation
And the horizons only continue to expand.
Biological Processes
Even though such products may be very different, and use different biological processes to produce them, most companies making a biotechnology product operate in a similar way.
We'll look at the pharmaceutical industry process as an illustration of the major functions involved in the discovery, development, and marketing of a new biotechnology product. These processes occur in laboratory settings, some in fields, and some in manufacturing facilities.
