These technologies, including messenger therapeutics, targeted immunotherapies, conjugated nanoparticles, and structure-based engineering, have already produced candidates with substantial potential to improve human health globally. Identification of better targets and combining nanotechnology and information technology it will be possible to develop rapid, accurate, personalized and inexpensive diagnostics and prognostics systems.
Arable land and fresh water are two of the most important, yet limited, resources on earth. Abuse and mis-appropriation have threatened these resources, as the demand on them has increased. Advances in biotechnology have already yielded technologies that can restore the vitality and viability of these resources. A new generation of technologies: bio-remediation, bio-regeneration and bio-augmentation are being developed, offering the potential to not only further restore these resources, but also augment their potential.
When we analyze the roughly 3 billion base pairs in such a sequence we find that we differ from each other in several million of these base pairs. In the vast majority of cases these difference do not cause any issues but in rare cases they cause disease, or susceptibility to disease. Medical research and practice will increasingly be driven by our understanding of such genetic variations together with their phenotypic consequences.
The full list follows below: Bio-based sustainable production of chemicals, energy, fuels and materials Through the last century, human activity has depleted approximately half of the world's reserves of fossil hydrocarbons.
Engineering sustainable food production The continuing increase in our numbers and affluence are posing growing challenges to the ability of humanity to produce adequate food as well as feed, and now fuel. We offer membership, events, industry analysis reports and more that serve the entire spectrum of the biotech industry. BIO has put together several comprehensive reports and tools for detailed industry analysis on COVID therapeutic developments, emerging company investment trends, chronic disease trends, clinical success rates and more.
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Have a Voice. Membership Eligibility. Benefits By Sector. Member Savings. VWR, Part of Avantor. More broadly, medical biotechnology, agricultural biotechnology and industrial biotechnology will all play increasingly important roles in our everyday life.
Biotechnology can also be employed to degrade toxic or harmful chemicals and agents to solve environmental problems. Your council will focus on developments in biotechnologies. What impact do you hope the council can have in the global conversation? Like all technologies, biotechnology offers the potential of enormous benefit but also potential risks.
Biotechnology could help address many global problems, such as climate change, an aging society, food security, energy security and infectious diseases, to name just a few.
Our council intends to build a map of these global problems, which will show which biotechnologies could help with each global challenge. To do that, we will also take into consideration a realistic timeline, potential risks involved and other factors. Hopefully, the result will be a state-of-the-art biotechnology vision report that includes not only policy suggestions but also in depth information for both experts and the public. Just like other emerging technologies, we cannot predict with absolute certainty the risks with biotechnology.
For example, synthetic biology is already contributing very much to the development of many biological systems producing drugs, chemicals and fuels without using fossil resources.
However, if misused, synthetic biology can generate biological and chemical materials that are harmful to human beings as well as the environment. All these risks and challenges need to be addressed through dialogues among stakeholders including policy makers, experts, the public, and NGOs to map the risks and solutions. That is definitely one of the things The Global Future Council on Biotechnology will be studying by employing diverse expertise of council members and through dialogues with cross-council members and other stakeholders.
We need to see continued efforts in research as there are still many unknowns about living organisms. In depth research on cells, multi-cells, tissues, organs, organisms, and even communities of organisms would lead to better understanding of them and ultimately to develop better biotechnological applications. Regulation is another place where we need to see advances. So, they reasoned that importing a natural predator , the cane toad, could be a natural form of pest control.
What could go wrong? Well, the toads became a major nuisance themselves, spreading across the continent and eating the local fauna except for, ironically, the cane beetle.
To avoid blundering into disaster, the errors of the past should be acknowledged. The world recently witnessed the devastating effects of disease outbreaks, in the form of Ebola and the Zika virus — but those were natural in origin.
The malicious use of biotechnology could mean that future outbreaks are started on purpose. Whether the perpetrator is a state actor or a terrorist group, the development and release of a bioweapon, such as a poison or infectious disease, would be hard to detect and even harder to stop. Unlike a bullet or a bomb, deadly cells could continue to spread long after being deployed.
The US government takes this threat very seriously , and the threat of bioweapons to the environment should not be taken lightly either. Developed nations, and even impoverished ones, have the resources and know-how to produce bioweapons. And new gene editing technologies are increasing the odds that a hypothetical bioweapon targeted at a certain ethnicity , or even a single individual like a world leader, could one day become a reality.
While attacks using traditional weapons may require much less expertise, the dangers of bioweapons should not be ignored. It might seem impossible to make bioweapons without plenty of expensive materials and scientific knowledge, but recent advances in biotechnology may make it even easier for bioweapons to be produced outside of a specialized research lab. And the openness of science publishing, which has been crucial to our rapid research advances, also means that anyone can freely Google the chemical details of deadly neurotoxins.
In fact, the most controversial aspect of the supercharged influenza case was not that the experiments had been carried out, but that the researchers wanted to openly share the details. On a more hopeful note, scientific advances may allow researchers to find solutions to biotechnology threats as quickly as they arise. Recombinant DNA and biotechnology tools have enabled the rapid invention of new vaccines which could protect against new outbreaks , natural or man-made.
For example, less than 5 months after the World Health Organization declared Zika virus a public health emergency , researchers got approval to enroll patients in trials for a DNA vaccine. While humans have been altering genes of plants and animals for millennia — first through selective breeding and more recently with molecular tools and chimeras — we are only just beginning to make changes to our own genomes amid great controversy. For instance, if gene therapy in humans is acceptable to cure disease, where do you draw the line?
Many others lie somewhere in between. How do we determine a hard limit for which gene surgery to undertake, and under what circumstances, especially given that the surgery itself comes with the risk of causing genetic damage?
And what about ways that biotechnology may contribute to inequality in society? Advances in biotechnology are escalating the debate, from questions about altering life to creating it from scratch. For example, a recently announced initiative called GP-Write has the goal of synthesizing an entire human genome from chemical building blocks within the next 10 years. The project organizers have many applications in mind, from bringing back wooly mammoths to growing human organs in pigs. But, as critics pointed out, the technology could make it possible to produce children with no biological parents , or to recreate the genome of another human, like making cellular replicas of Einstein.
In response, the organizers of GP-Write insist that they welcome a vigorous ethical debate, and have no intention of turning synthetic cells into living humans. Since virtually all of biology centers around the instructions contained in DNA, biotechnologists who hope to modify the properties of cells, plants, and animals must speak the same molecular language. Since the publication of the complete human genome in , the cost of DNA sequencing has dropped dramatically , making it a simple and widespread research tool.
Benefits: Sonia Vallabh had just graduated from law school when her mother died from a rare and fatal genetic disease. DNA sequencing showed that Sonia carried the fatal mutation as well. But far from resigning to her fate, Sonia and her husband Eric decided to fight back, and today they are graduate students at Harvard, racing to find a cure.
For example, researchers were able to track the Ebola epidemic in real time using DNA sequencing. And pharmaceutical companies are designing new anti-cancer drugs targeted to people with a specific DNA mutation.
Entire new fields, such as personalized medicine , owe their existence to DNA sequencing technology.
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