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Biotechnology can be defined in many ways and although different involved organizations do explain it in their own terms, ultimately, biotechnology is the use of biology as the foundation for developing various technologies as applied to research and product development. So, biotechnology can be used in food science, agriculture, environment, medicine and even robotics fields. The human involvement in manipulating their environment is now at remarkable levels. From the most basic direct organism manipulations such as fermenting beer and culturing bacteria to advanced nucleotide-based organ regeneration and animal cloning, our knowledge and technology has advanced far beyond what anyone would've expected just a decade ago. But even before there was a name to call it by, biotechnology was in existence. Even something that people have been doing for centuries, like preservatives to keep food edible during winter, is a form of biotechnology. When around 6000 BC, fruit juice was first fermented to form alcohol, it was another instance of biotechnology. Of course, it has emerged as a science only recently. About twenty years ago, the role of genetics in artificially creating proteins in a living being was discovered. DNA was discovered and molecular biology became a part of mainstream science. This was what gave rise to the study of biotechnology under that name. The eighties saw technological advances being made in leaps and bounds. The same was true in the case of biotechnology. Use of biotechnology in the fields of medicine and biological research became very important and more common. The concept of transgenic organisms was discovered, which led to vast advancement in the fields of disease resistance and productivity rates. Now we have plant-generated pharmaceuticals and production of antibiotics and insulin, as a direct result of this research. There are three different kinds of biotechnology that are practiced - red biotechnology, white biotechnology and green biotechnology. Red biotechnology deals with the genetic alteration of microorganisms for use in the production of pharmaceutical and medical substances like vitamins, vaccines, antibiotics and proteins, as well as in the field of genome manipulation. White Biotechnology is also known as bio-manufacturing and Grey Biotechnology. This is not yet a completely established field and involves manipulating live organisms to create important industrial chemicals. Some of the organisms used in these techniques include bacteria, enzymes, moulds and yeast. Agricultural Biotechnology, also known as Green Biotechnology, is what's applied into creating better, fresher, more nutritious and longer-lasting agricultural produce. A traditional agricultural biotechnology example is how wheat varieties are cross-bred to produce a disease-resistant crop.
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