What is Biotechnology?

Biotechnology is the application of knowledge about living organisms and their components to make new products and to develop new industrial processes.

Biotechnology is often referred to as an 'enabling' technology, that is, a technology that triggers wider applications in a number of industries, including:

• Health - pharmaceuticals diagnostics, gene therapy, biomedical products, medical devices and equipment.
  
  
• Agriculture - plant and animal breeding, veterinary products and diagnostics.
  
  
• Environment and resources - pollution control, land bio-remediation, water treatment, minerals extraction and processing, wastewater treatment, salinity control, and pest management.
  
  
• Food and beverage processing - starters, enzymes, fermentation, food ingredients fractionation.
  
  
• Industrial applications - agriculture product processing (oils, fibres, etc.), bio-processing, and industrial enzymes.
  
  
• Energy production - biomass.

Biotechnology Defined

The simplest definition of biotechnology is "applied biology." The application of biological knowledge and techniques to develop products. It may be further defined as the use of living organisms to make a product or run a process. By this definition, the classic techniques used for plant and animal breeding, fermentation and enzyme purification would be considered biotechnology.

Some people use the term only to refer to newer tools of genetic science. In this context, biotechnology may be defined as the use of biotechnical methods to modify the genetic materials of living cells so they will produce new substances or perform new functions. Examples include recombinant DNA technology, in which a copy of a piece of DNA containing one or a few genes is transferred between organisms or "recombined" within an organism.

View a video description of biotechnology

Return to top of page