Biotechnology: How much stretched-out the avenues are? About 99.9% of human DNA is exactly the same. It is the other 0.1% that codes for all of the differences that make each person unique. Not so fascinating? You are granted another – Your DNA would measure 200 billion kilometers if laid end-to-end as each cell in your body contains about two meters of DNA. That would take 7.4 days for sunlight to travel from Earth to the sun. To put that in perspective, stretch it 1,333 times in the same distance. Alien!! But crops with a built-in ability to combat insects or diseases OR sketch out genetically engineered insects to curb population of pests that spread disease and stamp out crops - is no more an alien concept. Since 1919, the field of biotechnology, from domestication of animals and use of microorganisms to make cheese & wine by fermentation, has climbed a surprising height in bringing forth sophisticated medical devices, biomaterials, diagnostics, medicines and more. Biotechnology is a golden tool to get to the bottom of some global problems like global epidemic, global warming, fatal diseases, soaring petroleum fuel crunch and above all- Poverty. Bio-nanotechnology, bioinformatics, virtual cell, genomics, bioenergy, DNA Sequencing, tissue engineering and regeneration, cell based Assay, PCR technology, chromatography, synthetic biology and proteomics are some of the state-of-the-art advances that has made biotechnology even more ruling. Whereas,biotechnology market research reportsshows that Bioinformatics is likely to witness the fastest boost in the coming years as an aftermath of substantial developments in this field. How feeding the world become a task of biotechnology? The production in agriculture is predicted to double in the next 30 years to be able to lend a hand to the population growth with 47% of increase i.e. to 8.9 billion by 2050. Adding when arable lands are running low! Though in the midst of smashup of technology, agriculture is no exception. In addition, biotechnology has become super important forhealthcare marketas with rising food prices and thriving global population, the challenge of feeding the world can be capitalized on the benefits of biotechnology. Tools like CRISPR are being used to edit DNA to tackle diseases. Crops have been improved in much the same way as selective breeding through this combination of biology and technology. Although these tools are not exactly mainstream and there’s no long way to go until they're as easy to use as other new technologies like 3D printing. Environmental friendly food and food designed to be resistant to pests and diseases allows maintaining a healthy, high-yielding crop on less acreage as farmers are spared to use fewer chemicals, such as pesticides and herbicides thereafter. But would the consumers be likely to eat biotech foods? As according to thebiotechnology market research reports, 53% of consumers have neutral impressions of plant biotechnology. Only if the provision of making food taste better or fresher (67 percent); more healthful fats (78 percent), like Omega-3, saturated fat (75 percent) and reducing trans (76 percent) in foods produced through biotechnology is maintained, then only the majority would be purchasing it. Looks like thumbs up is overdue! AI: Unraveling new niche in the realm of biotechnology With AI rushing in more and more parts of biotech, many AI-enabled ‘self-supervised’ systems are here to stay. You can foresee the incorporation of tech making the pie bigger for healthcare providers and scientists in various spaces like lab assistant startups, diagnostics, clinical trials or drug discovery to make them more effective at their job. Whereas, the behavior to access the ever-growing healthcare data by millennials, w.r.t. devices, voice interfaces and messaging platforms, is changing profoundly at a significantly higher rate than access by Gen X-ers and Baby Boomers. During 2009-2016, the number of publicly available clinical trial results were heightened from around 1.9K to 25.4K and the number of clinical trials were marked up by over 10 times between 2006 and 2016. As various companies conducting clinical trials are finding it increasingly upstream to find and enroll patients. So, AI is enabling biotechnology companies to narrow the gap while establishing and allowing a more valuable and speedy data analysis solutions & process that has paved the way for personalized treatments- a total new array of biotech products. While in order to plug-in/address the pain that patients feel post-surgery and during rehabilitation, AI would be savage in aiding researchers determine better designations for drugs and a better idea of any possible missteps taken in previous trials. Modern Biotech: An in-thing for environment Modern biotechnology possesses the power of wipe out four millions cars from the road in one year. Besides contributing in eliminating nearly 10.2 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions since 1996, biotech crops have saved 441 million gallons of fuel of the farmers- through reduced fuel operations. Thus, holding the potential to compress the time frame required to translate fundamental discoveries into applications, biotechnology would be accredited for some revolutionary technology in the near future.
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