Biotechnology and the COVID 19 Pandemic

Biotechnology is perhaps the most well-known of the major new technologies that have

dominated the field since the 1970s. Biotechnology has undertaken with the aim of generating

vast amounts of wealth and influencing every key economic sector. Biotechnology has already

had a notable impact on healthcare, food production and processing, agriculture and forestry,

environmental protection, and material and chemical production. (Gavrilescu & Chisti, 2005)

Biotechnology is often defined as the application of living organisms' and their components'

knowledge to industrial products and processes. It has already been stipulated that there is a large

and diverse range of definitions, and this is even more relevant in relation to operationalization.

Some studies are almost entirely focused on a single industry or type of company, while others

argue that modern biotechnology should now be viewed as a diverse set of knowledge bases and

an enabling technology, rather than a distinct industry or sector. Clearly, modern biotechnology's

knowledge, techniques, and tools have spread and influenced a wide range of application areas

and industries. (Brink et al., 2004)

Countless and numerous perspectives and definitions can be found in literature, ranging from

reports published by internationally influential studies conducted by academicians and

researchers in the social sciences to reports published by internationally influential studies

conducted by academic researchers in the social sciences. Following that is a list of definitions

with examples from industry associations and the social sciences.

  Zucker and Darby (1997): Many other industries (including medical supply, chemical,

agricultural, food processing, and brewing) have benefitted immensely from the

biosciences revolution, but none has prospered as extremely rapidly or significantly as

in drug discovery. They further asserts that biotechnology is defined more narrowly in

terms of breakthrough technologies like genetic engineering.

 Feldman and Ronzio (2001): The definition includes combinatorial chemistry and

liposomes to fields of chemistry and fermentation, large-scale cell culture and tissue

culture.

 Carlsson (2002): The bio-industries are undergoing a transformation as a result of new

biotechnology and information technologies. 'Fundamentally dependent on the

generation, processing, or manipulation of biological systems and materials,' is how bio-

industries are defined. Health care and medical services, agriculture and food technology,

environmental technologies, biomaterials, large sectors of chemical technology, parts of

the energy sector, and a variety of other industries are included.' Biomedicine in general,

medical devices, instruments, and supplies, as well as applications outside of the health-

care sector, such as food, agriculture, and forestry, are all part of the research.

The definition of biotechnology has evolved over time in concurrently with our growing

technical knowledge. Despite the fact that its early practitioners were unfamiliar with the concept

of the microbial world, biotechnology began by using cultured microorganisms to create a

variety of foods and beverages. Biotechnology is now defined as the use of living organisms or
bioprocesses to develop new products. The use of generic engineering and other modern

scientific techniques has revolutionized the area, regardless of the fact that the underlying

principle has not changed.

Genetics, molecular biology, microbiology, and biochemistry are all merging their discoveries

into the growing applied field of biotechnology, which is advancing at a tremendous rate.

C. Biotechnology in the Philippines, in Asia and the rest of the world

Role of Biotechnology in pandemic

Disease outbreaks and global pandemics have posed the greatest threat to humanity's long-term

survival. Over the course of human history, many pandemics have killed millions of people and

wreaked havoc on the global economy and politics. The world is currently dealing with yet

another pandemic, the Corona virus disease of 2019. (COVID- 19). Recognizing the gravity of

the situation, each country has taken special measures to combat the pandemic, most of which

have involved non-pharmaceutical measures such as social distancing and self-isolation.

(Bahadur Poudel et al., 2020)

Global pandemic is not a new scenario for mankind as there are number of episodes of various

pandemic which can be tracked in the table below. Every pandemic have affected the human

activities and economic growth of the world.

Table 1: Major Pandemics from the 20th century.

Pandemic Time period Causative Death Reference

(A.D) Agent Troll

Spanish Flu 1918-1919 H1N1 strain of About 50 (Johnson & Mueller,

influenza A million 2002)

virus

Asian Flu 1957-1958 H2N2 strain of 1.1 million (1957-1958 Pandemic

influenza A virus (H2N2 Virus) |

Pandemic Influenza

(Flu) | CDC, n.d.)

Hong Kung Flu A 1968-1970 H3N2 strain of 1 million (1968 Pandemic

influenza A virus (H3N2 Virus) |

Pandemic Influenza

(Flu) | CDC, n.d.)

HIV/AIDS 1981-Present Human About 32 (HIV/AIDS, n.d.)

immunodeficiency million (end

virus 2018)

COVID-19 2019-Present SARS-CoV-2 162,956 (21 (Situation Report-92

April 2020) HIGHLIGHTS, n.d.)

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has presented some significant challenges

to the scientific community. However, this has also offered opportunities for the pursuit of new

scientific activities, and in particular for the field of biotechnology. It has dramatically affected

the health, economy, and social mobility of people in countries around the world. Actions under-

taken by health officials and agencies to slow down the infection rate have required imposition

of extreme measures of limited mobility and social distancing. Almost all areas of our daily lives

have been almost halted, and science has been no exception. Although biotechnology research is

an essential activity to advance the development of key interventions to fight off this pandemic,

including vaccine development and drug discovery, most academic research groups around the

world have had to either stop or drastically modify their activities. Environment, all teaching has

been shifted from on-campus classrooms to online distance learning, and committee meetings

have also been shifted to a variety of web-conferencing and/or video conferencing platforms,

thereby dramatically changing our daily academic schedule. Yet, these changes have benefited

some other research activities, particularly in critical areas of biotechnology research. This new

and unusual environment could serve as a tremendous opportunity for highly motivated

researchers. Under these unusual circumstances, academic researchers can work on pending

manuscripts, analyze data, conduct experiments left behind on the back burner, and more

importantly pursue new ideas for discovery: developing vaccines and monoclonal antibodies, and

screening antiviral compounds, such as secondary metabolites and peptides; thereby, actively

participating in finding solutions to ongoing real-time global human and economic crises.

(Rosales-Mendoza et al., 2020)

References:

1957-1958 Pandemic (H2N2 virus) | Pandemic Influenza (Flu) | CDC. (n.d.). Retrieved October

29, 2021, from https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1957-1958-pandemic.html

1968 Pandemic (H3N2 virus) | Pandemic Influenza (Flu) | CDC. (n.d.). Retrieved October 29,

2021, from https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1968-pandemic.html

Bahadur Poudel, P., Ram Poudel, M., Gautam, A., Phuyal, S., Krishna Tiwari, C., Bashyal, N., &

Bashyal, S. (2020). COVID-19 and its Global Impact on Food and Agriculture. J Biol

Today’s World, 9(5), 221.

Brink, J., McKelvey, M., & Smith, K. (2004). Conceptualizing and measuring modern

biotechnology.

Gavrilescu, M., & Chisti, Y. (2005). Biotechnology - A sustainable alternative for chemical

industry. Biotechnology Advances, 23(7–8), 471–499.

https://doi.org/10.1016/J.BIOTECHADV.2005.03.004

HIV/AIDS. (n.d.). Retrieved October 29, 2021, from https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-

sheets/detail/hiv-aids

Johnson, N. P. A. S., & Mueller, J. (2002). Updating the Accounts: Global Mortality of the 1918-

1920 “Spanish” Influenza Pandemic. Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 76(1), 105–115.
 https://doi.org/10.1353/BHM.2002.0022

Rosales-Mendoza, S., Comas-García, M., & Korban, S. S. (2020). Challenges and Opportunities

for the Biotechnology Research Community during the Coronavirus Pandemic. Trends in

Biotechnology, 38(8), 823–824. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.TIBTECH.2020.04.016

Situation Report-92 HIGHLIGHTS. (n.d.). WHO. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)

Situation Report-92. 2020.