Principal people of biotechnology (Part 2)

INTRODUCTION

No one person was responsible for the birth of biotechnology. Many unknown people thousands of years ago created the agricultural and commercial practices that provided the direction for modern biotechnology developments. The principal people of modern biotechnology are from a variety of scientific disciplines. Many of the contributors to biotechnology were biologists. However, it also took the efforts of chemists, computer information scinentists, engineers, medical doctors, mathematicians, and physicists to produce biotechnology innovation.

Contributions to biotechnology’s development vary from the invention of specific laboratory techniques to the formulation of scientific ideas that changed the way scientists viewed nature. Many of the scientific discoveries that built modern biotechnology are usually associated with scientists working in university laboratories. Early biotechnology was predominantly performed by scientists at university. After the 1980s it became more common for scientists working in private corporations to come up with biotechnology innovations. Equally important are the contributions of scientists who work for government agencies such as the US Department of Agriculture or the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute in Africa.

Biotechnology innovations come from many nations. Discoveries are not restricted to the wealthiest nations. Many new techniques have come out of India, Korea, and Mexico. Women have been making contributions to modern biotechnology for many years. Many important principles of DNA function and structure were investigated by woman. The same is true for contributions by people of color. Advances in biomedicine that contribute to cloning and drug design were achieved by Black and Hispanic scientists. Science represents the endeavors of people coming from a variety of cultures and religious beliefs. Many of the early principles of science were developed by Arabic peoples. Scientific contributions are made by Buddhist, Christian, Islamic, and Jewish people. Unfortunately, not everybody was given equal access to science careers early in the history of modern biotechnology. As a result, most of the discoverers mentioned in this section are male Americans and Northern Europeans.

Ok readers… see you in part-3.

Reference

Shmaefsky BR. 2006. Biotechnology 101. Greenwood Press, London. p: 147-148.