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Chennaionline brings to you a
new section called 'Biotech Corner' by Dr.Sethuraman Subramanian
Biotechnology and Society - Part I
mAmazhai pORRuthum! mAmazhai pORRuthum!
nAmanIr vEli ulakiRku avan aLi pOl
mEl ninRu than suraththalAn.
silappathikAram by iLangO adigaL
gnAnAnandha mayam dEvam nirmala spatikAkritheem
AdhAram sarva vidhyAnAm hayagrIvam upAsmahE.
hyagrIva sthOthram
Let us begin this article with an invocation. The first verse cited above is from
silappathikAram, an epic Thamizh poetry by saint iLangO adigaL (circa 2nd century CE). It is in praise of rain (water) which is an unusual tribute by most standards. Our planet earth has been blessed with a variety of life forms mainly because either water (abundantly available on earth) was and is necessary to support life forms or life started to evolve in this medium. As of now no other planet in the solar system supports life forms as we know them. As we all know from everyday experience, rain (and hence water) is absolutely necessary to sustain life’s activities. A shortage in the form of a drought causes havoc as does an excess in the form of floods.
Of the three essential material things for human living - food, clothing, and shelter, water is essential for the very first need - that is, to grow food. Life originated in water. Most biological reactions take place in the medium of water. It is not surprising, then, that the major substance a biologist must deal with is water. The human body is 60-70 per cent water and yet we do not dissolve away in water. The biological entities, whether they are the tiniest creatures, giant plants, or animals, are made up of materials which are soluble in water in the interior of a cell (the fundamental unit of living beings) but a so-called fence of insoluble material surrounds the interior.
Rising one level above the basic necessities, education is food for the mind just as religion is food for the soul. Education opens up the mind to new vistas and acts as a deterrent against prejudices thereby facilitating a harmonious co-habitation of people in different societies. The second verse invokes the blessings of
hyagrIvA, who is the very embodiment of gnAnam (knowledge) and
Anandham (bliss) and whose figure is spotlessly clear like quartz crystal and who is considered the sole source and storehouse of all fields of knowledge.
It is the purpose of this and subsequent articles in this series to throw some light on biotechnology and its benefits to society at large. The 20th century Thamizh poet laureate, Mahakavi Subramania Bharathi, dreamed and proclaimed,
“iniyoru vithi seyvOm athai entha nALum kAppOm; thani oruvanuk kuNavillaiyenil jagaththinai azhiththiduvOm”
(let us make a rule and enforce it; if a single individual is starving let us destroy the whole world). We do not, after all, have to destroy the world thanks to biotechnology which is making a huge headway in the fields of medicine, industry, and agriculture. Biotechnology has a lot of promises for mankind, some of them have already been delivered while others are being worked at a feverish pace by scientists all over the world.
What is biotechnology? In general, technology is an application of engineering techniques to a scientific discovery in a discipline such as physics or chemistry to make useful products or deliver services to mankind such as automobiles, electricity, telephones and computers.
Biotechnology (bios in Greek means life) is thus the application of engineering techniques to biological (living) systems in order to deliver life-saving therapeutics, nutritional food, cheaper energy and cleaner environment. The term biotechnology refers to an amalgamation or blending of scientific disciplines such as genetics, microbiology, molecular biology, physics, chemistry, biochemistry and chemical engineering, under a unified discipline.
No new body of knowledge since the development of nuclear energy has the capability to provide extraordinary opportunities to improve the living standards of humanity as a whole. If this sounds far-fetched, one only has to look at some of the advances attained so far.
Genetically engineered organisms from bacteria, to yeast, plants and animals are already producing insulin (anti-diabetic drug), human growth hormone (to treat dwarfism), monoclonal antibodies (to treat arthritis, asthma and cancer, to name a few diseases that afflict mankind) and other hitherto unheard-of drugs in treating hereditary, infectious, degenerative and life-style diseases. Let us examine the origin of this revolution.
The double helical structure of Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA, a constituent of the cell) on the left was proposed by a pair of brash young scientists (James Watson and Francis Crick) in Cambridge, England, 50 years ago. Ever since, the life science discipline has not been the same. DNA has shaped the history of life on earth for over three billion years. As the master molecule of life, it determines one’s chances of getting cancer, or diabetes, as well as the colour of one’s hair or eyes. Discoveries about DNA’s mechanism of action have been instrumental in launching a revolution in the fields of medicine, industry, agriculture, energy, and environment.
Scientists learned to remove genes (chunks of DNA) from one organism, package them appropriately and incorporate them in other organisms to express them to make useful protein products. Thus was born the field of genetic engineering. Human and animal genes have been transferred into bacteria to make protein products like insulin, growth hormone, chymosin (an enzyme used to make cheese from milk), and haemoglobin (the oxygen-carrying protein present in blood) in large quantities to sell at an affordable price.
There are so many diseases caused by either the lack of a functional gene or a mutated (structurally altered) gene. In these cases, attempts are being made either to supply the protein products as a treatment or rectify the defective genes through what is known as gene therapy. A protein called tissue plasminogen activator (TPA), popularly known as “clot buster”, is the first line of treatment for those afflicted with myocardial infarction (heart attack) and is made by incorporating the human gene for TPA into animal cells grown in huge bioreactors (vessels in which cells are grown).
Likewise, another product called Factor VIII, also made in animal cell bioreactor using the corresponding human gene, is a life-saver for haemophilia (uncontrollable bleeding) patients. Antibodies (proteins which fight off disease-causing foreign invaders) have also been made using human genes to fight cancer, asthma, rheumatoid arthritis and many other diseases.
All this was made possible through gene manipulation and the information contained in the genes, more specifically in the structure of DNA. In recent times, plants and animals have also been manipulated to express therapeutic proteins in plant tissues and seeds and in animal milk. Milk has been considered one of the wholesome foods and now it is being made all the more precious by incorporating life-saving medicines in it. The intent here is to make valuable biopharmaceuticals inexpensively and sell them at affordable prices to a large number of patients to relieve them of their everyday misery.
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Through genetic engineering and biotechnology, there have been advances in crop protection (from pests) in the case of corn, cotton and soybeans, efficient energy production from conventional fuel sources, environmental clean-up (using engineered bacteria), and enhancement of milk production by cows. The promise offered by biotechnology is immense, starting with vaccine production for deadly diseases such as malaria, TB and leprosy and helping crop cultivation in arid climates as well as saline (salty) soils. These are just the tip of the iceberg and the potential of biotechnology to further revolutionise healthcare, augment food supply and provide a safer environment cannot be understated.
We shall examine, in the next segment, the broader impact of biotechnology on societal issues and how to get a balance between rewards and risks.
As everyone knows, there is no pleasure without pain, as made obvious in the Hindu mythology about the churning of the celestial ocean of milk to get the
amrita or elixir. The unintended (??) by-product was the primordial poison. Mythology also gave us a way out to get rid of the “poison”. Science can also do it in conjunction with society.
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