Introduction to Biotechnology and Historical Development
This section introduces biotechnology and the historical landmarks the CHSE Odisha elective expects you to place in order. The exam tests definitions, the traditional versus modern distinction, major discoveries, and the main colour-coded branches of the field.
Core definitions and milestones
Biotechnology is the use of living organisms, cells, or their components to make useful products or provide services. Traditional biotechnology includes curd, idli, bread, wine, and antibiotic production from moulds; modern biotechnology deliberately alters genetic material through recombinant DNA, gene editing, or cell fusion. Károly Ereky coined the term biotechnology in 1919. Key milestones include Pasteur's work on fermentation, Fleming's discovery of penicillin in 1928, the Watson-Crick DNA model in 1953, Cohen and Boyer's recombinant DNA work in 1973, PCR in 1983, and CRISPR-based editing after 2012.
Branches and scope
Red biotechnology is medical, green is agricultural, white is industrial, blue is marine, and grey is environmental. Indian and Odisha applications include vaccines, diagnostics, tissue culture of horticultural crops, biofertilizers, and fermented foods.
Worked example
A student must classify two processes. Making curd at home uses naturally occurring lactic acid bacteria and no deliberate gene transfer, so it is traditional biotechnology. Making human insulin in E. coli uses a human gene inserted into a bacterial plasmid, so it is modern biotechnology. The deciding criterion is deliberate genetic modification, not whether the product is old or new.
Traps that cost marks
Do not equate biotechnology with genetic engineering; genetic engineering is one subset. Do not credit Fleming with industrial penicillin production; Florey and Chain developed purification and mass production. Remember 1919 for the term and 1973 for recombinant DNA. Traditional processes still depend on microbes and are not non-biological.