Biotechnology,people and markets

In assessing the likely demand for biotechnology products it is not sufficient just to look at what is happening in firms and their immediate market environment. There is no one 'market' for biotechnology products: there are differences between sectors and between countries. You have instead to look at the institutional contexts of the biotechnology product's development. This paper reviews work which has been carried out by social scientists, especially those using 'social shaping' approaches, on the development of new products based on advances in biotechnology and on the creation of markets to go with these products. It examines work on public attitudes to the exploitation of the technology, focusing especially on the issue of social inclusion and exclusion and how biotechnology might make exclusion more likely. It concludes by considering what current differences in public attitudes to the development of some biotechnology-based products might mean for the development of markets for those products in the UK.     

Biotechnology, inquiry, and public education

Education of our children is arguably society's most important task, profoundly shaping the communities in which we all live. Achievement and success in many facets of our culture depend critically on formal education. Education is widely perceived as the only viable weapon against the poverty, drug abuse, crime and teenage pregnancy that derail many citizens, particularly in the inner cities, from realizing their productive human potential. Beyond its value to individuals, education is the cornerstone of societal advancement.     

Biotechnology

A selection of interesting papers that were published in the two months before our press date in major journals most likely to report significant results in biotechnology.     

Biotechnology

A selection of interesting papers that were published in the two months before our press date in major journals most likely to report significant results in biotechnology.     

Biotechnology

A selection of interesting papers that were published in the two months before our press date in major journals most likely to report significant results in biotechnology.     

Biotechnology, the brain and the future

Several new approaches to illness, inspired by recent advances in molecular biology, informatics and nanoscience, are readily applicable to diseases of the central nervous system. Novel classes of drugs will widen the scope of therapeutic action beyond merely modifying transmitter function and stem cell and gene therapies could offer an even more selective mode of targeting. Further into the future, nanotechnology has the potential to allow development of new medicines and novel access routes via miniaturized monitoring and screening devices: these systems, together with increasing use of carbon-silicon interfacing, will challenge traditional neuropharmacology. As the 21(st) century unfolds, the structure and function of the brain, which is incomparable with any other organ, will present unique technological and ethical questions.     

Biotechnology,Big Data and Artificial Intelligence

Developments in biotechnology are increasingly dependent on the extensive use of big data, generated by modern high‐throughput instrumentation technologies, and stored in thousands of databases, public and private. Future developments in this area depend, critically, on the ability of biotechnology researchers to master the skills required to effectively integrate their own contributions with the large amounts of information available in these databases. This article offers a perspective of the relations that exist between the fields of big data and biotechnology, including the related technologies of artificial intelligence and machine learning and describes how data integration, data exploitation, and process optimization correspond to three essential steps in any future biotechnology project. The article also lists a number of application areas where the ability to use big data will become a key factor, including drug discovery, drug recycling, drug safety, functional and structural genomics, proteomics, pharmacogenetics, and pharmacogenomics, among others.     

Biotechnology: Health care,agriculture, industry,environment

New developments in different branches of biotechnology are discussed. The production of peptide hormones, new interferons and other lymphokines by the microbial and cell cultures, and new enzyme inhibitors of microbial origin are the most important for health care and pharmacy. The main direction in research in the agriculture represents the development of the new, very effective methods of nitrogen fixation and the production of animal growth hormones by genemanipulated microorganisms. One of the most important field of application of biotechnology is the chemical industry, c.f. microbial production of polymers and biotransformation of compounds previously produced by chemical methods (acrylamide, adipic acid, naphtalen conversion, etc.). Several novel methods of degradation of the cellulosic materials are mentioned and exploitation of biotechnology in environmental protection is also discussed.     

Biotechnology, environmental forcing, and unintended trophic cascades

A long ongoing discussion between scientists and policy decision-makers seems to have entered recently into a new phase. The consequences of release of transgenic crops into the environment are being discussed not only by scientists but also by farmers, environmental groups and politicians, while an increasing amount of data is becoming available at all biological scales, including the field level. However, data still rely on experiments designed to capture direct consumer–resource interactions. Here we argue that we should attempt to concentrate on the ecosystem functioning of soil biota under genetically-modified (GM) plants, because functional and mechanistic analysis of the multitrophic effects of GM plants on soil biota is still lacking. It is our opinion that we should avoid addressing taxa and soil communities separately, but link them at their functional level. We shall explain why, using examples from ecosystem services, allometric scaling, and soil food webs. The energy flow of any food web under stress incorporates several factors and pooled information on ecosystem services and on the different responses of soil invertebrates to induced perturbations in other trophic levels. Therefore, we will systematically focus on the complementarities of these approaches. Handling editor: Sam Cook     

International Biotechnology

Cover illustration Special Issue: International Biotechnology. Efforts to develop biotechnological strategies for various applications have reached a global scale as indicated by the diverse international representation at the IBS2012 organized by the Asian Federation of Biotechnology (AFOB). For this special issue's cover, one such useful technique – the rapid gene knockout method – is schematically shown: a series of outer grey arrows represent the multiple steps required for conventional gene knockout experiments, while the inner green arrow represents the rapid gene knockout method; the steam-engine and the bullet train are used to further illustrate the difference. Image provided by Sang Yup Lee and Chan Woo Song (KAIST, Korea).