Cambridge O Level Biology · Syllabus 5090 · Biotechnology and Genetic Modification
Biotechnology
What is Biotechnology?
The use of living organisms, cells or enzymes to make useful products or to carry out useful processes. Biotechnology is a broad field that includes baking bread and brewing with yeast, growing bacteria in industrial fermenters, and the industrial use of isolated enzymes such as proteases, pectinase and lactase. Genetic modification is one technique used within biotechnology, not a synonym for it: many biotechnological processes, including all of the yeast and enzyme applications required at Cambridge O Level, involve no change to genetic material at all.
This definition is part of the Biotechnology and Genetic Modification chapter in Cambridge O Level Biology.
Biotechnology in context
Biotechnology is the use of living organisms, cells or enzymes to make useful products. Yeast respires anaerobically, converting glucose to ethanol and carbon dioxide: the carbon dioxide raises bread dough, and the ethanol is the product collected in ethanol manufacture. Bacteria are chosen for industrial production because they reproduce rapidly, can make complex molecules, contain plasmids that can receive selected genes, and raise fewer ethical concerns than using animals. They are grown in fermenters, in which temperature, pH, oxygen, nutrient supply and waste products are all controlled. Isolated enzymes do industrial jobs of their own — proteases and lipases in biological washing powders, pectinase in fruit juice, lactase in lactose-free milk. Genetic modification is changing an organism's genetic material by removing, changing or inserting individual genes; inserting the human insulin gene into bacterial DNA lets bacteria make human insulin, and inserting genes into crops can give herbicide resistance, insect-pest resistance or increased vitamin content — each with benefits and risks that have to be weighed rather than declared.
Common mistakes with Biotechnology
- “Biotechnology means genetic modification.” Why wrong It collapses a whole field into one of its techniques, and makes it impossible to answer a question about bread or washing powder.
- “All biotechnology is genetic modification.” Why wrong It collapses a whole field into one technique. Bread, brewing and every enzyme application in this chapter involve no gene transfer at all. Say instead Biotechnology is the use of living organisms, cells or enzymes to make useful products. Genetic modification is one technique used within it.
Questions students ask about Biotechnology
What is biotechnology?
Biotechnology is the use of living organisms, cells or enzymes to make useful products or to carry out useful processes. It includes using yeast to make bread and ethanol, growing bacteria in industrial fermenters, and using isolated enzymes such as proteases, pectinase and lactase. Genetic modification is one technique used within biotechnology, not another name for it.
Why are bacteria used in biotechnology?
Bacteria reproduce rapidly, so a very large population is produced quickly and product can be made fast. They can make complex molecules, because they have the cellular machinery to read an inserted gene and build the protein it codes for. They contain plasmids, small circular DNA molecules that can receive a selected gene. And growing and modifying bacteria raises fewer ethical concerns than the equivalent use of many animals.