The Importance of Medical Biotechnology

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Biotechnology is a group of technologies that work together with living cells and their molecules to prolong life (Keener and Hoban et al., 2014). Today biotechnology can be used in a variety of ways such as in an industrial setting where they use it to create enzymes to synthesize chemicals, in an environmental setting where they use it for waste and pollution prevention and lastly it can be used in medical applications such as in pharmaceuticals, genetic engineering, DNA fingerprinting and in lastly it can be used in stem cell therapy (Keener and Hoban et al., 2014). Everyone in today’s society depends and uses biotechnology in one form or another, biotechnology is essential for our health and wellbeing.
Vaccines are also manufactured by using biotechnology in which consist of three main ways, it aids scientists to separate pure antigen using specific monoclonal antibody, aids in synthesis of an antigen with the help of a cloned gene and lastly it also aids in the synthesis of peptides to be used as vaccines (Alam 2014). A vaccine can protect you from specific diseases that can make you very sick or even kill you.
Vaccines boost your immune system by helping the body to create antibodies for a specific disease so that next time when a real infection comes along your body is prepared for the infection which in turn aids in antibody resistance. Biotechnology has provided tools for understanding virulence which is the capacity of a microorganism to cause disease (virulence meaning: Collins English Dictionary 2014) and how microbial immunogens function and secondly it offers new ways for creating vaccines (Fields and Chanock, 1989).
Vaccines were first invented by Edward Jenner in 1796 to protect against smallpox, which involve...

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• Josefsberg, J. O. and Buckl. 2012. Vaccine process technology. Biotechnology and bioengineering, 109 (6), pp. 1443--1460.
• Keener, K., Hoban, T. and Balasubramanian, R. 2014. Biotechnology and its applications. [online] Available at: http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/foodsci/ext/pubs/bioapp.html [Accessed: 11 Apr 2014].
• Nicklin, D. S. 2001. Medical Issues: The Future Impact of Biotechnology on Human Factors. [e-book] United Kingdom: pp. 1-2. Available through: science and technology organisation collaboration support centre http://ftp.rta.nato.int/public/PubFullText/RTO/MP/RTO-MP-077/MP-077-19.pdf [Accessed: 11 Apr 2014].
• Offit, P. A. 2014. History of Vaccine Schedule | The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. [online] Available at: http://www.chop.edu/service/vaccine-education-center/vaccine-schedule/history-of-vaccine-schedule.html [Accessed: 11 Apr 2014].

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