Branches and Application of Biotechnology
Today, Biotechnology is a multidisciplinary activity involving chemists, biologists, engineers and many other specialists. Its scope is enormous. There are sophisticated new drugs produced in the milk of transgenic sheep, microbial cocktails that can clean up contaminated land transgenic plants and fish that yield more food or resist disease - and hundreds of different micro-organisms able to produce fermentation products such as amino acids, vitamins, enzymes and antibiotics.
Generally Biotechnology Classes Below:
Red Biotech: is applied to medical processes. Some examples are the designing of organisms to produce antibiotics, and the engineering of genetic cures through genomic manipulation.
White/Grey Biotech: applied to industrial processes. An example is the designing of an organism to produce a useful chemical.
Green Biotech: applied to agricultural processes. An example is the designing of transgenic plants to grow under specific environmental conditions or in the presence (or absence) of certain agricultural chemicals.
Blue Biotech: used to describe the marine and aquatic applications of biotechnology, but its use is relatively rare.
Biotechnology Products Below:
Transgenic plants and Animals
Applied Biology below:
Plant breeding & genetics
Post harvest biology
You are better off if you go to the Website called "The Association of Applied Biology " below...
In this sector biotechnology has contributed in the following improvements: Development of crop, fruit varieties with higher yield great resistance to stresses and higher nutritional value, increasing efficiency of nitrogen fixation in plants: Vaccine production from plants.
This sector broadly covers: Development of improved breed of animals with higher milk production, Higher animal productivity and with other desirable characteristic, animal feed, embryo transfer, developing vaccines etc.
Health care (also termed as Medical Biotechnology)
Application: Development of genetically engineered vaccines, DNA Fingerprinting, immunodiagonstic Kits for early detection of diseases, Gene profiling, antibiotics, Skin grafting etc.
Application: Industrial Biotechnology has a wide range of application, such as extraction of metals by microbial methods, enrichment of ores etc. It plays a vital role in food processing and beverage industry, etc.
Application: Production tissue cultured biomass, biogas production.
Aquaculture and Marine biotechnology
Application: It helps in generating new classes of pharmaceuticals, polymers, enzymes and many other chemical products. It is also helpful in Aquaculture, Transgenics, Fish production, Bioremedation, conservation, sea weeds culture etc.
Application: It helps in Biodegradation of xenobiotic compounds, Bio-mining, Restoration of denuded areas, Bio-sensors, processing of wastes, Composting, Anaerobic processing, etc.
Biotechnology Information System
Recognizing the importance of the information technology for pursuing advanced research in modern biology and biotechnology, a bioinformatics programme, envisaged as a distributed database and network organization, was launched during 1986-87. The programme has become a very successful vehicle for transfer and exchange of knowledge, information, technology packages and references in the country involving 8-10 thousand scientists.
Some more Details for ur convenience
Ten Distributed Information Centres and 38 Sub-Distributed Information Centres located in universities and research institutions are fully engaged in this task. Five national facilities have been set up for interactive graphics based molecular modelling and other biocomputational needs. The entire network has emerged as very sophisticated scientific infrastructure for bioinformatics involving state-of-the art computational and communication facilities.
The computer communication network, linking all the bioinformatics centres, is playing a vital role in the success of the bioinformatics programme. Database development, R&D activities in bioinformatics, human resource development and a variety of services in support of biotechnology R&D programmes and projects, has made the programme very popular and useful o the scientific community.
Bioinformatics deals with the various issues related to the biological data. It also covers the development of data analysis tools, modelling of biological macromolecules and their complexes, metabolic pathways, designing of new molecules such as drugs, peptide vaccines, proteins, etc. Gradually, Bioinformatics has evolved to deal with four related but still distinct problem areas, viz.
Handling and management of biological data, including its organization, control, linkages, analysis and so forth.
Communication among people, projects and institutions engaged in the biological research and applications. The communication may include e-mail, file transfer, remote login, computer conferencing, electronic bulletin boards, or establishment of web-based information resources.
Organization, access, search and retrieval of biological information, documents and literature.
Analysis and interpretation of the biological data through the computational approaches including visualization, mathematical modelling and development of algorithms for highly parallel processing of complex biological structures.
Bioinformatics may, therefore, be defined as a scientific discipline that encompasses all the aspects of biological information, viz., acquisition, processing, storage, distribution, analysis and interpretation, that combines the tools and techniques of mathematics, computer science and biology with the aim of understanding the biological significance of a variety of data.
India - a notable area for biotech expansion
India is amongst the emerging forces in the biotech world with potential to become a leading player in the Asia Pacific region, according to a report by Ernst & Young. The report identified India as a 'notable area for biotech expansion.
The report referred to Asia as a growing hotbed for biotech-related research and development, with over 500 biotech companies in the region. The international biotech community is aware of Indian scientific skill sets, which, according to experts, would be the determining factor in biotechnology, wrote Darlington Jose Hector.
In brief, developments in the field of Biotechnology, have taken place in the following areas: Bioinformatics; Agricultural biotechnology; Biofertilizers; National Bioresource Development; Plant Biotechnology; Bioprospecting; Animal biotechnology; Seri-biotechnology; Aquaculture & Marine Biotechnology; Environmental Biotechnology; Medical biotechnology; Food Biotechnology; Microbial and Industrial Biotechnology; Medicinal and Aromatic Plants; Basic Biotechnology; Biosafety; Biotech Parks, Mission mode Programmes; Biological Control; International Collaboration; Biotechnology for Societal Development; Autonomous Institutions.