Biotech isn’t a new branch of science, contrary to popular belief. In fact, the term “biotechnology” has been around since the 1920s, when Karl Ereky first defined it in his comprehensive book. The discipline has been evolving ever since, and today it makes a significant impact in many spheres of science, medicine and nutrition.
Unfortunately, a lot of stigma surrounds the field due to misleading messages popularized by the media today. While certain aspects of the scientific field can be quite “scary” when used for the wrong causes, the discipline by itself has brought incredible advancements to the modern world. In this article, we’ll discuss the main purposes of biotech to help you realize its impact on the world around us. So, without any further ado, let’s begin.
Its goal is to reduce hunger while increasing public health at the same time
Biotechnological research is mostly associated with the food processing industry and its production techniques. One of its purposes is to create food with a rich nutritional value while simultaneously being cheap and quick to produce. In this way, people would be able to eat less while retaining the same nutritional value to stay healthy, which could potentially help solve the global hunger issue. Of course, as technology develops, so does the field in question. We can only speculate about the possibilities and advancements that will come in the near future. We strongly believe biotech has the power to change the world for the better, as long as it’s used in the right way: to help people and solve global issues.
It helps expand our food resources by making cultivation processes more flexible
Genetically modified food is one of the many ways we can use biotech to broaden our resources and improve how we grow our food. Today, certain fruits and veggies can be cultivated in extreme conditions such as deserts, which was considered impossible until recently! As you already know, our planet has a finite amount of resources, and as our population grows, that fact is becoming a serious issue. Besides, mass production of food has left much of our fertile lands completely unusable. Biotechnology has the power to change that, which is the main reason countries keep investing in relevant bioresearch. So, yes, as long as the findings are utilized ethically, the entire human race could benefit from biotech advancements.
Environmental purposes
While biotechnological methods and techniques come with their own environmental issues, they also have the potential to clean many types of environmental wastes, making them a double-edged sword in a way. Now, as the technology advances, issues stemming from biotechnological enterprise activity (e.g. loss of biodiversity) are slowly being resolved one by one. On the other hand, the advancement of bioremediation technology made it possible to clean up oil spills and other types of hazardous leaks. Again, while biotechnology’s purposes are to help save the environment, its methodologies and technology are still far from being eco-friendly. However, as the tech surrounding it is slowly advancing, we believe that biotech holds the potential to help resolve some of the world’s largest burning issues to date.
Biotech and advancements in medicine
Biotechnology’s contributions aren’t only applied to agricultural and industrial settings, but it also has a big role in medicine and pharmacy. The relevant research helped scientists discover and develop many different vaccines, create artificial organs, and largely contribute to cancer treatment processes (STEM cells). Of course, that’s not all there is to it. There are countless ways biotech has helped medical scientists achieve many incredible results and contribute to the health industry as a whole. You can read more about it on websites like www.vintaytime.com if you’re interested in learning more.
Overall, without recent advancements in biotechnology, the world of medicine would probably look entirely different today. The COVID19 vaccines would take much longer to be developed, and the pandemic would’ve kept us confined to our homes for who knows how long. So, yes, you wouldn’t be wrong to say that this fast-growing field has greatly helped the world in its fight with the current pandemic.
They are reducing food waste and persevering our resources
Again, humanity has done much harm to our planet by using its resources to an excessive degree. We’ve driven many species to extinction as we’ve destroyed their natural habitats. Besides that, mass production of food leads to tons of food waste, which is a large issue that biotech may be able to tackle in the near future. We’ve found ways to conserve and preserve our food for longer periods of time, and the tech surrounding it only seems to be advancing.
Possible drawbacks
Unfortunately, like most scientific breakthroughs, biotechnological advancements can represent dangerous tools if used for the wrong purposes. The one that’s talked about the most is the creation of biological weapons that could have devastating effects on our world. That’s why there are so many international ethical conventions and regulations that limit the use of biotechnology to its main purposes: improvement of health, more efficient food processing, and betterment of various medical treatments. Besides that, as we’ve mentioned before, some processes involved in this research can be quite damaging to the environment and drive certain species to extinction. These issues are bound to be resolved, but there could be a high price to pay if it’s not done relatively soon.
The bottom line
As you can see, biotechnology has more than one purpose. Generally speaking, it helped us improve our world for the better, and it only seems to be advancing forward as time passes. Of course, as it’s such a broad field of study, it’s hard to explain it in a single article. If it’s a topic that interests you, we suggest you read more about it online, as many high-quality articles and publications can be found easily via the internet. All in all, we hope our article helped you understand this incredible field of science a bit better, and we wish you good luck in your further research.
