Introduction

The Office of Technology Assessment of the United States Congress defines biotechnology as "any technique that uses living organisms or substances from those organisms, to make or modify a product, to improve plants or animals, or to develop microorganisms for specific uses."

Biotechnology covers a multitude of different applications: traditional biotechnology refers to the conventional techniques that have been used for many centuries to produce beer, wine, cheese and many other foods, while 'new' biotechnology embraces all methods of genetic modification by recombinant DNA and cell fusion techniques to yield new drugs or to introduce new traits into commercial crops and animals as examples.

Biotechnology is not itself a product or range of products like microelectronics. Rather it should be regarded as a range of enabling technologies that will find significant application in many industrial sectors. It is a technology in search of new applications and the main benefits lie in the future. The industrial activities to be affected will include human and animal food production, provision of chemical feedstocks to replace petrochemical sources, alternative energy sources, waste recycling, pollution control, agriculture and forestry. The new techniques will also revolutionize many aspects of medicine, veterinary sciences, and pharmaceuticals.

It is important to distinguish between biology and biotechnology; the main difference is in their scale of operation. The biologist usually works in the range nanograms to milligrams. Biotechnologists working on the production of vaccines may be satisfied with results weighing in at milligrams, but many other projects aim at kilograms or even tonnes. Thus, one of the main aspects of biotechnology consists of scaling-up the biological process in terms of materials or effects produced.