The Ethical, Social and Economic Benefits of the Commercial and Medical Use of Enzymes

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The Ethical, Social and Economic Benefits of the Commercial and Medical Use of Enzymes This essay will be discussing the ethical, social and economic benefits of the commercial and medical use of enzymes. Firstly, an enzyme is a biological catalyst produced in cells, which is capable of speeding up reactions by reducing the activation energy for a reaction to take place. Enzymes are proteins that are highly specific due to its active site, which is formed by the specific folding of the tertiary structure of the protein. An area with a shape corresponding to the substrate molecule can react with the enzyme to be broken down into new products. The enzyme and the substrate bind together forming an enzyme-substrate complex that allows the reaction to take place after which the enzyme falls away unaltered with the products made. The type of enzyme used in industry can be extracellular or intracellular enzymes. Intracellular enzymes will be more expensive to use due to the high cost of the downstream processing, which needs to take place to isolate the enzyme. In addition, immobilised enzymes can be used which adds an extra cost as the enzyme is entrapped in a medium or on the surface of a matrix. There are various advantages of this, e.g. it does not contaminate the product thus making downstream processing cheaper, enzyme can be reused many times, which is cheaper than periodic replacement and it stabilises the enzyme more so it can withstand higher temperatures. Benefits to the economy from the commercial and medical use of enzymes is that enzymes are able to reduce the energy needed for reactions to take place, thus saving industries money as they will not need to purchase and use high cost, specialised equipment to get conditions such as very high temperatures for reactions to take place. This can be seen in the paper making industry where the enzyme Xylanase is found, it acts on xylan, a substance that binds cellulose and lignin. This increases access for chemicals used in bleaching, without this

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