Hello! Welcome to our first Macademics posts of the year. I can't wait to explore different topics with you all this year and interview different people. Last year I interviewed my friends who are studying different engineering disciplines and growing in their fields. For this post (and maybe for a few more), I wanted to focus about how different disciplines work together in an industry. This week I wanted to talk about Biotechnology.
Biotechnology is any technological application that uses biological systems, living organisms, to make or modify products or processes for specific use. Biotechnology is rapidly growing and expanding to be used for the development of pharmaceutical therapies and diagnostic tests.
The major industries where biotechnology is being used is medicine, agriculture, renewable energy, and the environmental industries. By using organisms and bacteria to manufacture different products and processes to provide an alternate way of performing current tasks and procedures such as making milk and beer products, biodegradables, and recycling and other waste management techniques.
Bioinformatics, is an interdisciplinary field that uses computational techniques to organize and analyze biological data. Bioinformatics is popularly used in the field of genomics, the science of focusing on the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genomes. Currently, there are tons of open-sourced software tools that people have been contributing to since the 1980s. By creating an open source community, tons of people can contribute to the research and advancement regardless of funding,
Some common everyday examples of biotechnology are in personal care products, fabrics, laundry detergent, and biodiesel. Don't be surprised to see on the shelves in your grocery store products that are made of biodegradable or with biotechnological applications! As technology keeps advancing and moving faster, so will advancements to better treat people and provide for rapidly growing population.
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