Biotechnology Fundamentals and Applications

Vocabulary flashcards covering core definitions, branches, key dates, researchers, and examples from Chapter 1 Biotechnology lecture notes.

Biotechnology

Broadly defined as the science of using living organisms, or the products of organisms, for human benefit: to make a product or solve a problem.

Selective Breeding

A historical biotechnology application where organisms with desirable features are purposefully mated to produce offspring with those desirable characteristics, such as the development of modern corn from teosinte.

Antibiotics

Substances produced by microorganisms that inhibit the growth of other microorganisms.

Batch Processes

Industrial processes in which scientists grow bacteria and other cells in large amounts to harvest useful products and molecules in large batches.

Gene Cloning

The ability to identify and copy or clone a specific gene of interest.

Recombinant DNA Technology

A technique enabling DNA to be combined from different sources, which launched modern biotechnology as an industry.

Genetic Engineering

The process of altering an organism's DNA, pioneered in 1973 by Stanley Cohen and Herbert Boyer.

Human Genome Project

An international research effort (1990–2003) with goals to identify and sequence all genes contained in human DNA and map gene locations to each of the 24 human chromosomes.

Golden Rice

A food crop genetically engineered to be more nutritious.

Microbial Biotechnology

The use and manipulation of microorganisms (such as bacteria and yeast) to make valuable products, enzymes, vaccines, and decontamination processes.

Humulin R

Human recombinant insulin approved by the FDA in 1982; prior to 1982, insulin was purified from pigs and cows.

Agricultural Biotechnology

The genetic engineering of plants to yield more per acre, resist diseases and insects, tolerate cold temperatures and drought, and increase protein or vitamin content.

Animal Biotechnology

The genetic engineering of animals to make valuable products, such as serving as bioreactors, model organisms for gene knockout experiments, or sources for organismal cloning.

Transgenic Animal

An animal containing genes from another source used to achieve large-scale production of therapeutic proteins, such as female transgenic goats expressing human anti-clotting proteins in their milk.

ATryn

An antithrombin therapeutic protein produced in the milk of female transgenic goats carrying human genes coding for anti-clotting proteins.

Gene Knockout

A research technique where a gene in an animal (such as rats or mice) is disrupted to determine the role and function of the gene based on the resulting loss of function.

Forensic Biotechnology

The analysis and application of biological evidence, such as DNA sequence data or DNA fragment analysis, to detect an organism's unique DNA pattern.

DNA Profiling

The modern process of DNA fingerprinting developed in 1988 by Alec Jeffreys at the University of Leicester, England, used to solve crimes, determine paternity, identify remains, and confirm disease-spreading organisms.

Bioremediation Biotechnology

The use of living organisms to process, degrade, bioaccumulate, and clean up naturally occurring or human-made pollutants and hazardous materials in the environment.

Bioremediation

Adding nutrients to stimulate the growth of naturally occurring bacteria to clean up environmental hazards, such as crude oil spills.

Aquatic Biotechnology

The use of aquatic organisms (such as finfish, shellfish, marine bacteria, and aquatic plants) to engineer disease-resistant strains, develop vaccines against viruses, and discover new genes.

Aquaculture

The practice of raising finfish or shellfish in controlled conditions for use as food sources, accounting for 50% of all fish consumed by humans worldwide.

Bioprospecting

The search for rich and valuable sources of new genes or therapeutic compounds in nature, such as finding antitumor and anti-cancer molecules in marine plankton and snails.

Transgenic Salmon

Salmon genetically engineered to overproduce growth hormone throughout the year, causing them to grow much larger than normal salmon.

Medical Biotechnology

The use of organisms or their products to improve human health and medicine, including diagnostics, preventative medicine, treatments, gene therapy, and stem cell technologies.

CAR T-cell Therapy

Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell therapy, a type of cancer immunotherapy treatment where a patient's T cells are inserted with a virus to create receptors that latch onto and destroy cancer cells.