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A career in biotech

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CIOL Bureau
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Biotech isn’t new to India, but the interest is now definitely growing what with compa-nies like Biocon, Dr Reddy’s and others making big news all over the world.

What’s biotech? And bioinformatics?





Biotechnology is defined as the means of genetically manipulating organisms so that useful products can be made. The word biotech also stands for all parts of an industry that creates, develops and markets a variety of products by manipulating life forms on a molecular level.


The areas covered by biotechnology include recombinant DNA, plant tissue culture, rDNA or gene splicing, enzyme systems, plant breeding, meristem culture, mammalian cell culture, immunology, molecular biology, fermentation, and many others.



Bioinformatics is the generation, collection, storage (in databases), and efficient utilization of data from the different areas in biotech to accomplish a research objective. Which means that computers are used to arrive at results based on the data collected. A masters student in Bioinformatics would take a program of study that combines biology and genetics, with the practice and theory of computer science.



What’s this used for? There are many areas under biotech where research is happening. This includes food technology–to make better tasting and healthier foods. In fact biotechnology is being banked upon to meet the requirements of an ever-increasing world population. There’s work going on for making better medicines, textiles, fodder, paper, leather and so on.





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