Transgenic Animals:Transgenic animals are being developed for a wide variety of applications. In the near future, transgenic animals will be used increasingly in safety evaluation of new pharmaceuticals and accelerating their regulatory approval. The feasibility of producing human pharmaceutical proteins in the milk of transgenic livestock has been established. As an alternative to cell-culture systems, such livestock appear to be appealing because of high volumetric productivity, low operati... Read Full Story

A powerful new approach to product development is the creative application of fermentation technology and molecular biology for "metabolic engineering." Examples of metabolic engineering for heterologous-protein production include deletion of proteases that eliminate product and production of factors that facilitate product maturation and secretion. For protein production on an industrial scale, metabolic engineering could be useful in shifting metabolic flow toward a desired product, creatin... Read Full Story

Advances in molecular biology have provided researchers with the opportunity to develop increasingly rational approaches to the design of therapeutic drugs. This technology, when used with computer-assisted molecular modeling, is called protein engineering. Protein engineering combines many techniques, including gene cloning, site-directed mutagenesis, protein expression, structural characterization of the product, and bioactivity analyses; it can be used to modify the primary sequence of a p... Read Full Story

Isolation generally denotes the separation of the product from the bulk of the producing organism. The disposition and state of the expressed protein affect the isolation procedure. For mammalian cells and some E. coli, Streptomyces, Bacillus, and yeast products, the protein is released from the cell into the surrounding medium, and isolation is effected by a solid-liquid separation step, usually centrifugation or microfiltration or ultrafiltration. If the product has aggregated either in the... Read Full Story

Most of the applications and potential applications of bioprocessing related to renewable and nonrenewable resources involve large-scale operations and products of relatively low value. The most abundant renewable material is lignocellulose. Wood, agricultural residue (corn stover, straw, etc.), plants grown deliberately for biomass (such as hybrid aspen), and recycled pulp fiber are the main sources of lignocellulose. Its largest industrial use is in making pulps for paper and other fiber pr... Read Full Story

Bioprocess engineering is the subdiscipline within biotechnology that is responsible for translating life-science discoveries into practical products, processes, or systems capable of serving the needs of society. It is critical in moving newly discovered bioproducts into the hands of the consuming public. The bioprocess engineer has many missions. Although the most visible today is the production of biopharmaceuticals, bioprocess engineering also has a major role in the existing fermentation... Read Full Story

The importance of the Human Genome Project has raised many concerns, both biological and ethical. These questions are being addressed as the information generated by the project is being processed and used by people worldwide.1) Privacy and confidentiality of the genetic information: Who owns the genetic information?2) Right to use the genetic information by insurance companies, employers, courts, schools, adoption agencies, and so on: Who should have access to individual genetic information ... Read Full Story

Scientists are still far from identifying and characterizing all the proteins in the human body. However, incredible strides have been made to provide a foundation for protein research. This reaches to the source of proteins and ultimately the source of life. This foundation is laid by deciphering the entire genome sequence, or DNA (gene) sequence of an organism. Beginning with bacteria, microscopic worms, and yeast, scientists and computational biologists have expanded DNA sequence informati... Read Full Story

Once the DNA has been obtained, it is necessary to cut the DNA into pieces to be used for the engineered gene. Restriction enzymes are used for cutting the DNA at specific sites. Most restriction enzymes cut the DNA into diametric fragments, as opposed to symmetric fragments. That cut leaves the DNA double helix with a small sequence of nonpairing bases that overhang on the end. These regions of DNA are generally used for ligation, or joining with other DNA fragments. DNA fragments cleaved wi... Read Full Story

The genetic material of any organism is the substance that carries the information that determines its life cycle and its characteristics. There is a procedure by which this genetic material is used in living processes; this is the central dogma of genetics. Before the development of modern genetics, it was commonly believed that the substance responsible for heredity was a protein. Once DNA was recognized as the genetic material, the central dogma was established. This states that the inform... Read Full Story