biotech

• Medical biotechnology


  A branch of medicine that uses living cells and cell materials to research and then produce pharmaceutical and diagnosing products
• Medical and health care applications of biotechnology


  • New diagnostic tests
  • New treatments for diseases and conditions
• New diagnostic tests


  • New generation of home pregnancy and strep tests
• Gene Therapy


  1. Extraction of a few cells from the patient

  2. Addition of functional genes in cells of the patient that carry defective ones

  3. Reintroduction of corrected cells into the patient

  
• The first successful gene therapy was performed in 1990 on a 4-year-old girl afflicted with severe combined immunodeficiency disease (SCID) commonly known as the "bubble boy disease"
• The girl had white blood cells (lymphocytes) that could not produce adenosine deaminase (ADA), an enzyme needed for normal development of the immune system
• Gene Therapy procedure


  1. Lymphocytes were harvested from the child's blood and altered by the addition of the ADA gene

  2. These cells were returned to the child's blood stream, where they successfully produced the needed ADA for improved immune function
• Pharmacogenomics


  The use of information about the genome to develop drugs and the study of the ways genomic variations affect drug responses
• Examples of pharmacogenomics


  • Some painkillers work only when body proteins convert them from an inactive form to an active one
  • Statin drugs work to lower blood cholesterol levels
• Biopharmaceuticals

  Pharmaceuticals produced in biotechnological processes using molecular biology methods, distinguished from the broad category of biologics which are pharmaceuticals produced using conventional biological methods
• Tissue engineering

  Combines advances in cell biology and materials science, allowing us to create semi-synthetic tissues and organs in the laboratory
• Tissue engineering

  • Consists of biocompatible scaffolding material, which eventually degrades and is absorbed, plus living cells grown using cell culture techniques
• Vaccine production

  • Most of the new vaccines consist only of the antigen, not the actual microbe
  • The vaccine is made by inserting the gene that produces the antigen into a manufacturing cell, such as yeast
  • During the manufacturing process, each yeast cell makes a perfect copy of itself and the antigen gene, and the antigen is later purified from yeast cell culture
• By isolating antigens and producing them in the laboratory, it is possible to make vaccines that cannot transmit the virus or bacterium itself
• Using these techniques of biotechnology, scientists have developed antigen-only vaccines against life-threatening disease such as hepatitis B and meningitis
• Researchers have discovered that injecting small pieces of DNA from microbes is sufficient for triggering antibody production
• Examples of biotechnology-based vaccines


  • Genetically modified goats have produced a possible malaria vaccine in their milk
  • Academic researchers have obtained positive results using human volunteers who consumed hepatitis vaccines in bananas, and E. coli and cholera vaccines in potatoes
  • Researchers are also developing skin patch vaccines for tetanus, anthrax, influenza, and E. coli
• These vaccines are genetically incorporated into food plants and need no refrigeration, sterilization equipment, or needles, so they may prove particularly useful in developing countries