Part I Introduction. The topic of my research paper is the Medical Biotechnology, because of its great history and one trait which have the power of healing. Medical Biotechnology is the oldest field of science which even till today is not researched fully. From the ancient times people have been practicing medicine in all its fields, so today medicine have grown to industries serving billions people around the world. Since the great industrial revolution, the population has doubled, and with the developing of humans, different kinds of diseases have emerged.
But diseases were not the only problem, with a new era and the number of people which have been increasing, food became among of the serious problems. People started look for different ways in order to feed people, but because of the awful sanitation they also have been looking for lands and medicine. So, here I would like to start with my topic “Medical Biotechnology”, these two words have all answers for the problems which people have even today. First of all, let me tell what the biotechnology is, it is the science and technology which use living things and cells for common good.
This science was originated thanks to breeding of crop plants, domestic animals, and the fermentation of the food stuff for making bread, cheese, beer and wine. But in the late of 20th and 21st century, biotechnology has expanded to include new and diverse science such as genomics, recombinant, gene technologies, applied immunology and development of pharmaceutical therapies and diagnostic tests. Because of the biotechnology the life of people much easier than it could be, biotechnology was used by humans when they irrigated lands and in order to increase harvest, they unconsciously applied this technology.
As it was told, the science of biotechnology was used in agriculture, in the way irrigating lands and interbreeding crops, what in its turn gave rich yields. The process of cultivation might be the oldest type of biotechnology used in producing food since the Neolithic Revolution. Through early biotechnology, the earliest farmers selected and bred the best suited crops, having the highest yields, to produce enough food to support a growing population.
As crops and fields became increasingly large and difficult to maintain, it was discovered that specific organisms and their by-products could effectively fertilize, restore nitrogen, and control pests. Throughout the history of agriculture, farmers have inadvertently altered the genetics of their crops through introducing them to new environments and breeding them with other plants, this is one of the first forms of biotechnology. Brewing was an early application of biotechnology Biotechnology has also led to the development of antibiotics, such as Penicillium.
In 1928, Alexander Fleming discovered the mold Penicillium which is a genus of ascomycetous fungi, it is also very important in the natural environment as well as food and drug production. It is made of genus, which produces penicillin, this molecule is used as an antibiotic, which kills or prevents the developing of certain kinds of bacteria in the body. According to the Dictionary of the Fungi (10th edition 2008), the widespread genus contains over 300 species. This discover was one of the most important in the world of medicine and in in 1940 penicillin became available for medicinal use to treat bacterial infections in humans.
But in spite of the huge progress in the medicine and healing people, biotechnology was not always used for good intention. Thus in the early twentieth century scientists gained a greater understanding of microbiology and explored ways of producing specific products. So, in 1917, Chaim Weizmann first used a pure microbiological culture in an industrial process, that of manufacturing corn starch using Clostridium acetobutylicum, to produce acetone, thanks to this discover United Kingdom during the World War I used acetone in order to create some explosives.
Structural formula of the acetone molecule, Me2CO, C3H6O. This example shoes that developing and progress not only in mechanic, but also in biology science may be very dangerous and have spots of their effect on the human history. Part II. Medical Biotechnology Drug Production Since the time when people found out the medicine and till today, it has significantly changed due to developing and techno step of humans. About the drugs people knew hundreds years ago, but today it has flourished, thanks to biotechnology which helped to discover all a lot about cells and bacteria.
It led to manufacturing of medicine drugs in commercial level and as a result there a huge number of pharmaceutical companies emerged. Top 20 Pharmaceutical Companies 1| Pfizer | $57,747| 2| Novartis| $47,935| 3| Sanofi| $42,779| 4| Merck| $41,289| 5| GlaxoSmithKline | $35,594| 6| AstraZeneca| $32,981| 7| Johnson &? Johnson| $24,368| 8| Eli Lilly &? Co. | $22,608| 9| Abbott Laboratories| $22,435| 10| Bristol-Myers Squibb| $21,244| 11| Takeda Pharma| $17,257| 12| Teva| $16,689| 13| Boehringer-Ingelheim| $14,058| 14| Bayer Schering| $13,853|.
15| Astellas| $12,311| 16| Daiichi-Sankyo| $11,338| 17| Otsuka Pharmaceutical| $9,935| 18| Gilead Sciences| $8,102| 19| EISAI | $7,710| 20| Mylan| $6,106| Note: In all Top Company profiles, dollar amounts are in millions. So now it may be seen what impact medical biotechnologies does on commercial level. Pharmacogenomics This science is about of how variations in the human genome affect the response to medications, and combines words “pharmacology” and “genetics” to indicate the intersection of pharmaceuticals and genetics.
This science flourished because of the new technologies which have made it possible to analyze multiple genes simultaneously, rather than one at a time. Also one of the bright traits of this science is that Pharmacogenomics may permit drugs to be tailor-made for individuals and adapted to each person’s own genetic makeup. Almost everything may have an effect on a human’s response to medicines, Environment, diet, age, lifestyle, etc. but understanding an individual’s genetic makeup is thought to be the key to creating personalized drugs with greater efficacy and safety.
This new branch of biotechnology combines traditional pharmaceutical sciences such as biochemistry with annotated knowledge of genes, proteins, and single nucleotide polymorphisms. Gene therapy Genes are the building blocks of inheritance which have been given from parent to child; they contain instructions for making proteins, if genes don’t produce the right proteins or don’t produce them correctly, a child can have a genetic disorder (the mutation changes which prevents proper work of protein).
Gene therapy is an experimental technique that uses genes to treat or prevent disease. The most common form of gene therapy involves inserting a normal gene to replace an abnormal gene. Other approaches include: * Swapping an abnormal gene for a normal one * Repairing an abnormal gene * Altering the degree to which a gene is turned on or off Although there is much hope for gene therapy, it is still experimental. These three fields of Medical biotechnology are the most promising approaches.
So, in the conclusion I would like to say that the medical science does a real job in all its spheres to improve people lifestyle, and gene therapy, pharmacogenomics drugs production show the progress. Especially nowadays, when new diseases appears, it is became more difficult for medicals to fight with them, but I am sure that biotechnology will help them. References http://www. medterms. com http://www. ornl. gov http://www. nlm. nih. gov http://bookshop. cabi. org/Uploads/Books/PDF/9780851998268/9780851998268. pdf ru. wikipedia. org.