A Companion to the Philosophy of Technology

Chapter 94

Biotechnology

JENNIFER KUZMA

Some argue that biotechnology began thousands of years ago when crops were first bred for specific traits or micro-organisms were used to brew beer. The term “biotechnology” was first used in 1917 for processes using living organisms to make a product or run a process, such as industrial fermentation.¹ Others consider the beginning as the emergence of techniques allowing researchers precisely to manipulate and transfer genes from one organism to another. Genes are made up of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and are expressed into proteins, which do chemical work and form structures to give us specific traits. In the 1970s, scientists discovered and used the power of natural “scissors” – proteins called restriction enzymes – specifically to remove genes from one kind of organism and put them into related or unrelated organisms. Thus recombinant DNA (rDNA) technology, or “modern biotechnology,” was born. Most definitions of biotechnology focus broadly on the manipulation and use of biological systems for a purpose. However, there are numerous definitions which vary in their inclusion of modern techniques.

The pioneers of biotechnology could not have envisioned our current abilities to engineer plants to resist disease, animals to produce drugs in their milk, and small particles to target and destroy cancer cells.^2,3 However, biotechnology is more than engineered products – it is also a set of tools for understanding biological systems. Genomics ...