An Overview of Biotechnology

Abstract

Biotechnology has a history that originates long before the term “biotechnology” became a household word. The term was coined in 1917 by Karl Ereky in reference to the beet diet used to grow large numbers of pigs. Since then, a number of historical discoveries have propelled biotechnology to become one of the most dynamic industries and scientific disciplines of the late twentieth century, similar to the advances in technology that have allowed humans to penetrate Earth’s atmosphere and land on the moon 30 yr ago. Although the initial excitement for the space program has waned to some degree, space technology has revolutionized our society. Like biotechnology, the Space Age resulted in technology that could only be remotely conceived of decades before: rocket propulsion, communication and weather satellites, lasers, Gore-Tex, freeze-drying, and fiber optics, to name a few. Indeed, the realization of gene and protein manipulation, like space travel, proves that society is limited only by imagination, not ability.