Introduction to Health

Biotechnology

Dr. Anum Gul

What is biotechnology all about?
 Biotechnology

It is the use of living organisms or processes to develop products useful

for mankind
 Biotechnology: An ancient job, a novel concept

The term is largely believed to have been coined in 1919 by Hungarian engineer Károly Ereky
 Biotechnology

The field of biotechnology has been in use for ages in various forms

 Growing of better crops (agricultural biotechnology)

 Animal breeding (animal biotechnology)

 Application of microorganisms in the production of cheese and yogurt (food

biotechnology)

 Bioremediation (environmental biotechnology)

 Bioethanol production (industrial biotechnology)

 History of Biotechnology

 Discovery made by Sir Alexander Fleming in the year 1928.

 The discovery led to the making of antibiotics that we use today.
 History of Biotechnology

 In 1953 James Watson & Francis Crick

 Discover the structure of the human DNA

helix

 The molecule that carries genetic information

from one generation to the other
 History of Biotechnology

 In 1972 Paul Berg Stanford University scientist first

developed recombinant DNA technology, a method for
insertion of genetic material from one organism into
another
Types of Biotechnology
 Health Biotechnology

Application of living organisms or cells or tissues to produce

pharmaceutical and diagnostic products that help to treat and to prevent
the progress of human diseases
Need of Biotechnology in the Health Sector
 Need of Biotechnology in the Health Sector

 Disease diagnosis refers to identification of the cause of the disease.

 Conventional methods include microscopy, culture of specimen and testing

for sensitiveness, several immunological assays have negative aspects like
being tedious; taking longer time etc.

 In order to overcome this, various biotechnological approaches have been

developed.
 Need of Biotechnology in the Health Sector

 There is emergence of therapies that have fewer side effects.

 Vaccines which are safer than ever before and innovative diagnos­tic aids that
are faster and smaller in size with warranted accuracy.

 It has effectively enabled the scientists, researchers and physi­cians to work at

the cellular and molecular lev­els to produce major benefits to life sciences
and healthcare.
Role of Biotechnology in Prevention,
Diagnosis and Treatment of Human
Diseases
 Vaccines

 The vaccine is basically a biological preparation that improves the human

immune defense system to fight diseases.

 The vaccines normally contain an agent that diligently resembles a disease-

causing bacteria and is frequently produced from debilitating or killed forms

of the microorganisms.
 Vaccines

 It can stimulate the body’s immune system to recognize the agent as a foreign body,
so that the immune system can recall and kill any of these microorganisms that later
infect the human body.
 Recombinant DNA Technology
Human Insulin Production
 Monoclonal antibodies

 Monoclonal antibodies are mono-specific antibodies as they are made by identical

cells that are all clones of a distinctive parent cell.

 They are extremely specific; that is, each antibody binds to the specific site of the
antigen.

 Some antibodies, once activated by the occurrence of a disease, continue to confer

resistance against that disease.

 Classic examples are the antibodies to the childhood diseases chickenpox and
measles.
Monoclonal Antibodies
 Genetic Testing

 Genetic testing, also known as DNA testing, allows the determination of

bloodlines and the genetic diagnosis of vulnerabilities to inherited diseases.

 In humans, genetic testing can be used to determine a child's parentage (genetic

mother and father) or in general a person's ancestry or biological relationship
between people.

 Today, tests involve analyzing multiple genes to determine the risk of developing
specific diseases or disorders, with the more common diseases consisting of heart
disease and cancer.
 Types of Genetic Test

 Cell-free fetal DNA

 New born screening

 Carrier testing

 Predictive and pre-symptomatic testing

 Pharmacogenomics
 Probes

 Small nucleotide sequences used in detection of complementary sequences in

nucleic acid sample is known as probes.

 These probes can be radioactively or non radioactively labelled so that they can be
used for detection purposes.

 The samples like blood fluids, tissues etc., can be analyzed with probes for disease
diagnosis.

 The advantages of using a probe is that it is highly specific, and the procedure is
relatively simpler and rapid.

 The results are obtained even when the amount of sample is less.
Probes
 Adult Stem Cell Therapy

 One of the main roles of adult stem cells is that they remain in an
undifferentiated state in the human body and multiply by cell division to
replenish dying cells and restore damaged tissues and organs.

 While we call them adult stem cells, they are more accurately called somatic
(from the Greek word soma = body) because they come from virtually any body
tissue, not only in adults but children and babies as well.
Adult Stem Cell Therapy
 Tissue Engineering

 The basic concept about tissue engineering is to make human tissues

through in vitro methods under controlled laboratory conditions and the

making of such tissues is called bioengineered tissues.

 Tissue engineering involves the use of a tissue scaffold for the formation of

new viable tissue for a medical purpose.

Tissue Engineering
 Examples of Tissue Engineering

 Bioartificial windpipe: The first procedure of regenerative medicine of an implantation

of a "bioartificial" organ.

 Bioartificial liver device: several research efforts have produced hepatic assist devices
utilizing living hepatocytes.

 Artificial pancreas: research involves using islet cells to produce and regulate insulin,
particularly in cases of diabetes.

 Artificial bone marrow

 Artificial bone

 Oral mucosa tissue engineering

Emerging Trends in Health Biotechnology
 Embryonic Stem Cell Therapy

 The ESCs are basically pluripotent stem cells isolated from the inner cell mass
of the blastocyst (early-stage embryo).

 One of the best applications of ESCs is to provide a large supply of required

cells to be used as cell-based therapy and tissue replacement in patients who
are suffering from degenerative diseases.
Embryonic Stem Cell Therapy
 Nanobiotechnology

 The vision of nanotechnology was introduced

in 1959 by late Nobel Physicist Richard P
Feynman

 Nanotechnology is the manipu­lation of matter

on an atomic and molecular scale. It is a
futuristic approach that usually works with
materials, devices, and other struc­tures with at
least one dimension sized from 1 to 100
nanometers.
 Application of Nanobiotechnology

It has vast range of appli­cations such as in

 Medicine

 Agriculture

 Environment
 Phage Therapy

 Phages are basically viruses that enter bacterial cells and disturb bacterial
metabolism causing the bacterium to lyse.

 Phage therapy is generally used to treat pathogenic infections caused by

microorganisms.

 Unlike antibiotics, phage therapies have special advantages for localized use
in humans because they infiltrate deeper in the infected area and remove the
infection from the source.
 Phage Therapy

 Another interesting aspect of bacteriophage is that these phages stop

reproducing once the specific bacteria they target are destroyed.

 It has been reported that phages do not develop secondary resistance, which

happens quite often in antibiotic treatments.

 With the increasing incidence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in humans, there

is a need to apply phages in treating various kinds of infections.

Phage Therapy
 RNA Interference Technology

 RNA interference (RNAi) is a biological process in which RNA

molecules inhibit gene expression or translation, by neutralizing targeted
mRNA molecules

 The RNAi technology provides excellent tools to study the role of

specific gene in the development, causes, and progression of particular
diseases, and has taken the biomedical community by storm.

 It has been suggested that human disease progression can be blocked by

using RNAi-based therapies to turn down the activity of genes.
 RNA Interference Technology

 RNAi technology has been in use in various fields of biotechnology,

particularly in the food plant engineering that produces lower levels of
natural toxins.

 Research work has been done to effectively reduce the allergen levels in
tomato plants and also is known to cut the cancer-causing agents in tobacco
plants.

 Interestingly, bioengineered plants such as FlavrSavr tomatoes and two

cultivars of ring-spot-resistant papaya were originally developed by
employing antisense technology.
RNA Interference Technology
 Gene Therapy

 Gene therapy is the use of DNA as a pharmaceutical agent to treat disease.

 It derives its name from the idea that DNA can be used to supplement or alter
genes within an individual's cells as a therapy to treat disease.

 The most common form of gene therapy involves using DNA that encodes a
functional, therapeutic gene to replace a mutated gene.

 Gene therapy is of two types, somatic gene therapy and germ line gene therapy.
Gene Therapy
 Gene Therapy

Somatic Gene Therapy Germ line

Gene Therapy