Biotechnology

Biotechnology

We use biotechnology to alter living things. It gives us the power to create new animals, plants, foods, medicines, materials and even machines. People have used biotechnology for thousands of years to slowly breed new plants, animals and the microorganisms that make cheese, bread, beer, yogurt and wine.

In 1987, geneticist Truda Straede of Australia created spotted cats after breeding toroiseshell cats with Burmese and Abyssinian cats for ten years. Today, modern biotechnology could speed up this breeding process by altering the genetic material deep inside the cells. Scientists have already created bright blue carnations, and tomatoes that ripen on the vine without getting mushy. Biotechnology's potential is enormous. We can even use bacteria grown in laboratories to digest oil to clean up oil spills. The next hundred years will be an age of exciting ”bio-inventions”.

Spot the Difference

In the future, the spot-making genes from a leopard could be mixed in with the genes of a domestic cat to produce a spotted animal.

Killer Cotton

In 1992, an American company altered the genes in some cotton plants so that their leaves became poisonous to caterpillars but nothing else. This reduced the need for harmful insecticides.

Two cats, Jamaica. Photo by Elena.

Strange but True

In 1994, scientists in Australia invented a way of removing fleece from sheep without shearing. They injected sheep with a special hormone then wrapped them in lightweight hairnets. Three weeks later, the fleece could be peeled off the sheep by hand.

Transgenic Pigs

The heart of a pig is similar in shape and size to the human heart. People and pigs, however, have very different genes. Scientists in England have developed a virus that carries human genes into pigs. This makes it possible for the human body to accept the heart of a pig in a transplant.

Changing Genes

Every living cell has spiral-shaped deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), discovered in 1953 by Francis Crick and James Watson at Cambridge in England. The DNA is made up of genes that control how the cell works. Biotechnhologists have learned how to alter the genes and change living cells.

• 6000 BC: Beer – Mesopotamia.
• 1000 BC: Cheese – Nomad tribes, Middle East.
•  1972: Oil-digesting microbes – Dr. Ananda M. Charkabarty, USA.
• 1975: Monoclonal Antibody – George Kohier and Cesar Milstein, England.
• 1984: Transgenic plant – University of Ghent, Belgium.
• 1986: Black Tulip, Geert Hageman, Netherlands.
• 1989: Gene Shears – James Haseloff and Wayne Gerlach, Australia.
• 1990: Crown Gall Bactericide – Dr. Alan Kerr, Australia.
• 1991: Long-life Tomato, USA.