Agenda

 Introductions
 Syllabus
 Policy Review
 What is Biotechnology?
 General Biology
 Assignment
One who asks a question is a
fool for five minutes;

One who does not ask a

question remains a fool
forever.
Have you ever...
… Had a “flu shot”?

… received an insulin injection?

… taken a home pregnancy test?

… taken penicillin?

… eaten bread or cheese?

 The most exciting phrase to hear in
science, the one that heralds the most
discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found
it!) but "That's funny..."  ~Isaac
Asimov
BIOTECHNOLOGY:

the use of

living organisms or

their products to …
Applications of Biotech
1. Medical
• Treatment
• Diagnosis
• Cure?

2. Forensic

3. Agricultural
Food production

4. Evolutionary Studies
In US…

1,473 biotechnology
companies

Biotech industry
employed 198,300
2003
 The Biotech Industry
 $51 billion a year industry (2005)

 165 drugs and vaccines

– (370 in clinical trials)

 U.S. revenues $8 billion in 1992 -

 to $39.2 billion in 2003.
 Credit: from Cell
72:971-983 Fig. 7
March 26, 1993,
Diagnosis of Huntington’s Disease Copyright © 1993 Cell
Press

Fig 22.2b Testing for the expanded trinucleotide repeat

regions in the huntingtin gene that are responsible for
© 2003 John Wiley and Sons Publishers Huntington’s disease by PCR .
Medicinal Applications -Approved Drugs
Product Indication
Activase (tissue plasminogen activator) heart attack

Humulin (Insulin) diabetes

Engerix-B (Hepatitis B Vaccine) hepatitis B infection

Epogen (erythropoietin) anemia

Herceptin Breast Cancer

Reopro cardiac ischemia

Benefix hemophilia

Rituxan non-Hodgkin’s lymphom

Study of genetic variation underlying differential
responses to drugs

http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/txg/members/2003/111-11/focus/header.jpg?section=toxicogenomics
 Gene Therapy
Insert the working gene into the cells of patient

10 Plus years ago…

Ashi DeSilva
Enzyme deficiency
No Immune System
 Reproductive Cloning

http://www.time.com/time/moy/runnerwilmut.html
Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD)

Credit: Courtesy Susan

Lanzendorf, Ph.D.,
Jones Institute for
Reproductive
Medicine/Eastern
Virginia Medical
School

© 2003 John Wiley and

Sons Publishers

An eight-cell human pre-embryo.

 Credit: Courtesy of
Cellmark Diagnostics,
Germantown,
Maryland.

Forensic Applications

Fig 22.11 DNA fingerprints

prepared from DNA isolated
from a bloodstain at the site of
a crime and from blood
obtained from three individuals
suspected of committing the
crime.
© 2003 John Wiley and Sons Publishers
Plant and Animal
Applications
•Pesticide

•Herbicide
Resistance

•Growth

•Shelf-life

Resistance to infection

Production of ‘human’ protein

Better growth
 Ecology and
Evolutionary Studies

Environment
Industrial Applications

 Paper Production

 Food Industry

 Tanning

 Fuel
 APPLICATIONS
Bread

Wine

Selective Breeding (Plants and Animals)

Cheese

Reproductive cloning

Genetic fingerprinting

Medicine

Agricultural purposes (food processing)

 Applications Continued

Gene therapy

Pollution Control (Bioremediation)

Mining

Energy Production

Forestry

Aquaculture
 A SHORT HISTORY OF BIOTECHNOLOGY:

Neolithic Age:
Move from hunting/gathering to agricultural lifestyle

save the seeds of the best specimens

yeast for fermenting foods and beverages.

1665 Robert Hook coined term ‘cell’, thought the function

of cell was transport

1675 Leeuwenhook
enhanced microscopes
first to observe bacteria and sperm
‘mysterious male contribution stimulating egg to grow’
1859 Charles Darwin
Natural Selection as Means of Evolution
Galapagos Island

Populations change as they adapt to environment

New species!

GENE – Never heard of it.

1866: Gregor Mendel

Principles of Heredity

Originated the Science of Genetics

Two copies of each ‘factor’

GENE- What you talkin about Willis?

•1869 Miescher discovers/isolates DNA

•1928 Frederic Griffith

DNA is ‘transforming principle’

•1944 Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod, Maclyn

McCarty
genetic material is composed of
deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA).

194? Chargaff
A = T and G = C

1953 Wilkins and Franklin

X-ray crystallographs of DNA

1953 Watson and Crick

double helix structure of DNA
1971 Stanley Cohen and Herbert Boyer , Paul Berg
Recombinant DNA technology
Boyer becomes co-founder of Genentech,Inc.
makes recombinant insulin.

1982. First rDNA pharmaceutical (insulin) approved for use

in the U.S.

1983 Kary Mullis

develops PCR (polymerase chain reaction)

1985: First environmental release of genetically engineered

microorganisms ("ice-minus" bacteria) approved in the U.S.

1997: Cloning of Dolly

2000: Human Genome Project Complete

Assignment

 Create a Profile in WebBoard

 Biotech News
It is never to late
to become
What you might
have been.
-George Eliot
Numbers

 10 billion
– Number of cells humans replace every
day
Scientific Thought for the
Day
Causative?

Coincidental (Bystander)?

Consequence?
Quote

A Mind Stretched by a New Idea

Never Returns to Its Original
Dimensions

 Oliver Wendell Holmes