Biotechnology & Its Principles - Practice Questions & MCQ

• Biotechnology deals with techniques of using live organisms or enzymes from organisms to produce products and processes useful to humans. 
• However, it is used in a restricted sense today, to refer to such processes that use genetically modified organisms to achieve the same on a larger scale. 
• Further, many other processes/techniques are also included under biotechnology. For example, in vitro fertilization leading to a ‘test-tube’ baby, synthesizing a gene and using it, developing a DNA vaccine or correcting a defective gene, are all part of biotechnology.
• The European Federation of Biotechnology (EFB) has given a definition of biotechnology that encompasses both traditional views and modern molecular biotechnology.
• The definition given by EFB is as follows:
  • ‘The integration of natural science and organisms, cells, parts thereof, a molecular analog for products and services’.
• The term ‘biotechnology’ was coined in 1917 by Karl Ereky.
• Paul Berg is considered the Father of Biotechnology.

Principles of Biotechnology:

• Genetic engineering: Techniques to alter the chemistry of genetic material (DNA and RNA), to introduce these into host organisms and thus change the phenotype of the host organism.
• Maintenance of sterile (microbial contamination-free) ambience in chemical engineering processes to enable the growth of only the desired microbe/eukaryotic cell in large quantities for the manufacture of biotechnological products like antibiotics, vaccines, enzymes, etc.

What is recombinant DNA?

• Recombinant DNA, which is often shortened to rDNA, is an artificially made DNA strand that is formed by the combination of two or more gene sequences. 
• This new combination may or may not occur naturally, but is engineered specifically for a purpose to be used in one of the many applications of recombinant DNA.