Date:08/05/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/05/08/stories/2006050801850500.htm

Andhra Pradesh

Biotech careers

If the 19th century belonged to engineering, 20th century to IT, the 21st century will belong to biotech.

Biotechnology is the application of biological sciences to industry. Biotechnology involves the use of plant and animal cells and microbes in the manufacture of goods useful for mankind. Biotechnology as a career was perhaps born in 1980. A number of firms entered to take biotechnology into the realm of commercial production. They manufacture quantities of gene-engineered substances for a variety of uses. In the food industry biotechnologists have been working to enable cattle grow faster and produce new enzymes for making cheese. They are working on eradicating crop diseases and making foodstuff that consists entirely of tiny organisms. Biotechnologists can greatly improve the nutritional value of even existing foods. In the food processing industry enzymes are used for tenderising meat and for improving the extraction of juice from fruits by rupturing cell walls.

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T. Muralidharan