Biotechnology

Lecture 1 of BIOTECHNOLOGY
Definition
Ancient Biotechnology
Classical Biotechnology
Foundations of Modern Biotechnology

What is Biotechnology?

Some Ideas?

Some examples?

WHAT IS BIOTECHNOLOGY?
The use of living organisms
or their products
to enhance our lives and our
environment

Menurut EFB (European Federation of

Biotechnology, 1983), Bioteknologi
adalah penggunaan terpadu biokimia,
mikrobiologi, dan ilmu-ilmu keteknikan
dengan bantuan mikroba, bagianbagian mikroba atau sel dan jaringan
organisme yang lebih tinggi dalam
penerapannya secara teknologis dan
industri.

Bioteknologi mencakup proses-proses

biologis oleh organisme yang dimanfaatkan
oleh dan untuk kepentingan manusia.

Bioteknologi sebagai ilmu terapan

biotechnology for millennia

WHAT IS BIOTECHNOLOGY ?

Biotechnology
Ancient
Classical
Modern
NEED + KNOWLEDGE
=> TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES

Ancient Biotechnology
* Domestication and Agriculture
* Ancient Plant Germplasm
* History of Fermented Foods and Beverages
(the beginning of Classical Biotechnology)

Domestication
Nomadic lifestyle of prehistoric peoples
- gather food and hunt animals they abandoned their
nomadic ways and started to domesticate plants and
animals
-archaeological findings ancient farming sites
New World, the Far East, and Europe
at the same time

*Agriculture developed independently in several areas of the

world

Domestication
9000 BC - First evidence of plant domestication in hills
above Tigris River
5000 BC - Agricultural communities exist in Mesopotamia
2000 BC - The Babylonians and Egyptians left pictorial evidence
that dogs, sheep, and cattle had been domesticated

What exactly prompted this sudden shift to a more sedentary lifestyle

is not clear; - increasing demand for food due to population growth
- natural dwindling of herds of migratory animals

Ancient Plant Germplasm

1000 BC - Domestication complete for all important
food crops in the new world
- Selected seeds, cuttings, or tubers from
superior plants for the next planting.
700 BC - Assyrians and Babylonians
- Hand pollination of date palm

Large-scale organized seed production began in the early 1900s

Ancient Plant Germplasm

Nikolai I. Vavilov (1887-1943), Russian plant geneticist and agronomist
collected and catalogued thousands of ancient crop plants
and their wild relatives.
-Between 1923 and 1931, he traveled extensively in the
Soviet Union and in over 50 countries to collect economically
important plant varieties - beans, pea, chickpeas, maize,
lentils, oats, rye, wheat
-Established one of the first important gene banks for long-term storage
of important plant germplasm.

Demonstrated the economic value of germplasm collection particularly with

respect to breeding programs for disease resistance

Ancient Plant Germplasm

Vavilov was arrested in 1940 on charges of espionage
and died in prison from malnutrition
Lysenko (1898-1976), a leader in the Soviet Science
favored Lamarckism:
theory of science that argues that organisms can
acquire physical traits in response to the
environment, and pass on these traits to their
offspring
He was opposed to Mendelian inheritance
Thus, Lysenko was against selective breeding

Ancient Plant Germplasm

As the Soviet government suppressed Mendelian genetics,
the US was establishing centers for the preservation, study,
and distribution of germplasm.
National Seed Storage Laboratory - Fort Collins Colorado

National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation

CGIAR - Consultative Group of

International Agricultural Research

Stores house plant material such as seeds, plant cuttings, and tubers.
- storage is either short-, intermediate, and long-term
Ex. Seeds in intermediate-term storage are kept at -5 - 0 oC
Dried seeds are stored in sealed containers at - 20 oC
- long-term to last over 100 years
- Periodic germination and viability tests are performed
Tissues are now also kept in tissue culture
- individual cells capable of regenerating new platelets.

SGRP

Systemwide
Genetic
Resource
Programme

CGIAR

Ancient Biotechnology
FERMENTATION
4000 BC - Egyptians used yeast in wine and bread
making
2000 BC - Chinese develop fermentation

Fermented Foods
Once people settled in villages, the development of new foods
was possible - accidental discovery!
* food contamination often destroys the food reserve
* in some cases the microbial activity
enhances the flavor and texture
kimchi - sauerkraut - yoghurt - cheese
FERMENTATION - (lat.) fervere => to boil
addition of yeast to fruit juice
=> wine
yeast to malt and grain => beer
aroma of bread baking => alcohol produced
bread rises => because of trapped CO2
CO2

Glucose --> - -> - -> Pyruvate ---> Acetaldeyhyde ------> Ethanol

Classical Biotechnology
Knowledge drives technology
scientific and applied knowledge
practical experience
* From mid-nineteenth century
knowledge of cell processes
- refined fermentation technology
Brewers began producing alcohol on a large scale in the early 1700s

* By the 1800s brewers knew to use pure yeast cultures

Classical Biotechnology
1822-1895

Louis Pasteur - germ theory

- microbes are responsible for fermentation
- proved that fermentation is the result of
activity of yeasts and bacteria.

Classical Biotechnology
*Sir Alexander Fleming
* Nobel prize 1945

1881 - 1995

Fleming left culture dishes lying around

He found that an unusual mold had germinated on the plate.
and inhibited the growth of the bacterium that was growing
on this plate.
A crude extract of the mold was then shown to have antibacterial properties.
This observation led Fleming to discover in 1928 and by 1929 an antibiotic that was
produced by the mold Penicillium.
Fleming did not attempt to purify penicillin. But in the late 1930s Australian Howard Florey
and Chain and others developed penicillin into a clinical antibiotic in 1940-41.
Fleming, Florey, and Chain shared the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Classical Biotechnology
- Penicillin was produced by the fermentation of cultured Penicillium.

Whole organisms or individual cells rather than specific genes

Classical Biotechnology - ANTIBIOTICS

Classical Biotechnology
- biochemical transformations
Conversion of Cholesterol to steroids such as cortisone and sex hormones
chemical synthesis of cortisone requires
about 31 steps - low yield
in 1955 Upjohn researchers realized that Rhizopus arrhizus
is capable of converting inexpensive plant sterols into cortisone
synthetic compound
$ 200 / gram
biotransformation
$
6 / gram

Foundation of Modern Biotechnology

Knowledge of
cell structure
biochemical reactions
genetic make-up of organisms

Foundation of Modern Biotechnology

Classical Biotechnology

Classical Biotechnology

Classical Biotechnology

Classical Biotechnology

Foundation of Modern Biotechnology

- Knowledge of genetic material
Dr. Barbara McClintock
(1902-1992)
1983 Nobel Prize
- discovery of transposable elements
35 years earlier
- 1929 - reports 10 chromosomes in maize

Maize cytogeneticist - provided a visual connection between certain

inheritable traits and their physical basis in the chromosome.

Classical Biotechnology

SIR ARCHIBALD EDWARD GARROD (1857-1936)

Garrod studied medicine at Oxford University and became a physician.

Classical
Biotechnology
Garrod was studying the human disorder ALKAPTONURIA
[turns the urine dark when exposed to oxygen]

Individuals lack homogentisate oxidase,

leads to the excretion of
HOMOGENTISIC ACID
turns dark when exposed to aire

He collected family history information (as well as urine) from his patients.
Based on discussions with Mendel, Garrod deduced that alkaptonuria is a recessive disorder.
In 1902, Garrod published a book called The Incidence of Alkaptonuria: a Study in Chemical
Individuality. This is the first published account of a case of recessive inheritance in humans.
Garrod was also the first to propose the idea that diseases were "inborn errors of metabolism."
He believed that diseases were the result of missing or false steps in the body's chemical
pathways. In 1923, his studies on alkaptonuria, and albinism were published as a book:
Inborn Errors of Metabolism.
Garrod attributed a biochemical role to genes, and laid the
groundwork for the next wave of discovery -- the molecular basis of inheritance.

Classical Biotechnology

ALFRED HENRY STURTEVANT

Classical(1891-1970)
Biotechnology
Drosophila melanogaster

FRUIT FLY

For his Ph.D. thesis, Sturtevant published the world's first genetic
map based on the idea that GENES ARE LINKED IN A SERIES.
The single, mutant white-eyed fly was crossed with
normal red-eyed flies =>
produced normal offspring (F1 generation)
F1 flies were crossed and more white-eyed flies were
produced. This result from this crossing experiment was
expected as Mendel found a similar pattern in peas.

Classical Biotechnology

In 1928, Griffith - mice and pneumonia causing bacteria

Streptococcus pneumoniae.

THE TRANSFORMING PRINCIPLE

Classical Biotechnology

Smooth (S) strain -

pathogenic

Rough (R) strain non-pathogenic

Classical Biotechnology

1944 -

Avery, MacLeod and McCarty

Classical Biotechnology

THE TRANSFORMING PRINCIPLE IS

-isolated and fractionated cellular components from the heat killed
pathogenic bacteria.
-introduced each fraction one at a time to harmless bacteria, which were
then given to mice.
By this method, they found that only DNA would make the bacteria
able to cause pneumonia and death in mice.

Classical Biotechnology

Foundation of Modern Biotechnology

- knowledge of genetic material

1953 Watson and Crick

- Structure of DNA
used x-ray data collected
by Rosalind Franklin to deciphered
the structure of DNA

Classical Biotechnology

Foundation of Modern Biotechnology

Holley, Khorana and Nirenberg
SHARED THE 1968
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
FOR DECIPHERING THE genetic code

Classical Biotechnology

THE BEGINNING OF RECOMBINANT TECHNOLOGY- 1973

Stanley Cohen
Plasmids and
Antibiotic resistance

Herbert Boyer
Restriction enzymes

Recombinant DNA procedures

involve splicing one piece of DNA
into another

THE BEGINNING OF RECOMBINANT TECHNOLOGY- 1973

BACTERIUM
Plasmids

Chromosomal DNA

Antibiotic Resistance Marker

Classical Biotechnology

Classical Biotechnology

Classical Biotechnology

Kary B. Mullis
1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
http://www.karymullis.com/

PCR: polymerase chain reaction

used to detect small amounts of DNA
present in a sample (blood, food, soil)
the PCR chain reaction is used to
amplify the amount of DNA present

General PCR Protocol

DNASequencing.3gp

* 1986 Leroy E. Hood's Laboratory at the California Tech and Smith

announce the first semi-automated DNA sequencing machine
* 1987 Applied Biosystems markets first automated sequencing machine, the Prism 373

Classical Biotechnology

Dye-terminator sequencing technology

Biotechnology is multidisciplinary
involving a variety of natural and applied sciences
cell and molecular biology
microbiology
genetics
physiology
chemistry and biochemistry
engineering
computer science / bioinformatics
nanotechnology

Many Applications of Biotechnology

Production of new and improved foods
Pharmaceuticals
Industrial chemicals
Livestock
Disease-resistant crop plants and livestock
Diagnostics for detecting genetic diseases
Gene therapy
Recombinant vaccines

Biotechnological - hope for

- restoring the environment
- protect endangered species
Microorganisms are used to clean up toxic wastes from
industrial and oil spills
Conservation biologists use genetic methods to identify particular
populations of endangered or threatened species.
By determining the genetic diversity of various plant
and animal populations, genetic analysis can help
zoos and field biologists improve conservation practices.