The Impact of RED Biotechnology on Healthcare Advances
Creators: name: Abhay H Pande1±, J Anakha1
Publisher: name: The Science world a Monthly e magazine
Year: 2024

description: The Dawn of Biotechnology in Healthcare

Biotechnology is defined as ‘a set of enabling techniques for bringing about specific human-made changes in DNA, or genetic material, in plants, animals, and microbial systems, leading to useful products and technologies’ (UN, 2024). The use of biological substances became more prevalent in traditional medicine during the Middle Ages, bringing about tremendous improvements. As the use of herbal remedies increased, healers and apothecaries planted medicinal gardens to obtain a wide range of plants that could be prepared using traditional wisdom passed down through the generations, frequently combining elements of distillation and fermentation (Hargreaves, 2023). Honey was used by the ancient Egyptians to treat respiratory illnesses and as a wound treatment, while by 600 BC, the Chinese were treating boils with mouldy soybean curds. Additionally, it has been documented that Ukrainian peasants used mouldy cheese to treat wounds that were infected because the moulds emitted antibiotic-like compounds that killed bacteria and stopped the infection from spreading (Hargreaves, 2023; Science Learning Hub, 2024). The second stage of biotechnology development, known as classical biotechnology, spanned the years from 1800 to nearly the middle of the 20th century. The abundance of diverse observations in this era, strengthened by scientific evidence, has allowed the mysteries of biotechnology to be unravelled (Bhatia and Goli, 2018). The experiments and observations of Louis Pasteur led to the development of techniques like pasteurization, which greatly aided in food safety and disease prevention during the mid-19th century, when infant mortality from food poisoning exceeded 200 per 1000 livebirths annually in many countries (Currier, 2023). Moreover, Gregor John Mendel discovered genetic information in pea plants for the first time, laying the foundation for modern biotechnology. Mendel's groundbreaking discoveries of dominant and recessive features, as well as the basic principles of genetics that are now known as the laws of heredity, came about as a result of his findings (Verma et al., 2011; Hargreaves, 2023). In addition, a number of fundamental ideas in biology were developed during the second half of the 1800s as scientists shifted their attention from the study of animals, organs, or tissues to the study of individual cells. It was at this time that Schleiden and Schwann demonstrated that all tissues originate from cells and that animals and plants have the same basic units of structure, cells, which combine to form complex organisms (Mayr, 1982). The long-held belief that new cells can form spontaneously from inanimate materials was refuted by studies conducted, among others, by Pasteur and Virchow, which showed that new cells can only develop from other cells. Later, the observations and discoveries by pioneers such as Boveri, Haeckel, and Flemming integrated the emerging fields of cytology and genetics, leading to the birth of the DNA era, which laid the foundation for modern molecular biology (Dahm, 2005; Verma et al., 2011; Bhatia and Goli, 2018). The invention of vaccinations is one of the many notable discoveries made during this time that highlights the significance of biotechnology in the medical profession. Variolation, the deliberate exposure of healthy individuals to smallpox, has been used since at least the 15th century in various parts of the world in an attempt to prevent sickness. Some sources even cite as early as 200 BCE for these procedures. Benjamin Jesty conducted experiments to test his theory that cowpox infection may shield a person against smallpox in the early 1770s. Later in the 1790s, Edward Jenner builds on this discovery by injecting 8-year-old James Phipps with matter taken from a cowpox sore on a milkmaid's hand. Phipps recovers completely and becomes the first person to receive a smallpox vaccination. Consequently, the word ‘vaccine’ was later created, derived from the Latin word ‘vacca’, which means cow (WHO, 2024). Louis Pasteur developed methods for immunizing against cholera and anthrax by using the infectious pathogens themselves, based on Jenner's research (The Institut Pasteur, 2024). At this point, it appeared that the biological sciences were approaching the exponential stage of development and growth. By the time the first antibiotic, penicillin, was discovered by Alexander Fleming near the end of the classical biotechnology era, biotechnology had already proven its worth in the healthcare sector (Bhatia and Goli, 2018; Britannica, 2024).