Originally published July 24 2005
Definition of biotechnology
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Given the many different faces of biotechnology, experts are having trouble defining it. Beatrice Arnold said that biotechnology is the effort to make drugs that mimic antibodies and proteins found in our bodies, while M.K. Shankaralinge Gowda commented that biotech means affordable drugs and increased food production in India.
At the BIO 2005 convention this week, the answer depended on whom you asked.
From his medical perspective, he added, it would be technology that helps researchers "interfere with the behavior of aberrant cells and promote improved behavior."
As an official of Greater Philadelphia First, a civic group since merged into the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, she was among a small group that began planning to bring BIO to Philadelphia.
"Biotechnology is future medicine," said Jae-Joon Kim, assistant manager at Macrogen Inc., a South Korean company involved in DNA sequencing.
Biotechnology is the effort to make drugs that mimic antibodies and proteins found in our bodies, said Beatrice Arnold, manager of molecular biology at the Swiss company Debiopharm S.A.
It is the use of cells or parts of cells to make new products, from drugs to foods, said Detlef Terzenbach, a microbiologist at HessenAgentur GmbH, of Germany.
It is "gene-based applications for human health," said Indy Park, chief executive of BioSpectrum Inc., of South Korea.
His company's products for skin care are "on the border between pharmaceuticals and cosmetics," he said, but it is easier to market them as cosmetics.
Biotechnology now includes the heavy use of computers to process vast amounts of genetic data, said Toby M. Horn, a volunteer for BioJudiciary.
The group seeks to educate legislators, judges and their staffs on the benefits of biotech, she said.
Biotech means affordable drugs and increased food production in India, said M.K. Shankaralinge Gowda, an official of Karnataka state, home of the fabled technology hub, Bangalore.
The only place you could not get a straight answer was at the information booth at the convention.
There, John Widtfeldt said he had "no comment" on what biotechnology is.
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