Advancements in Modern Biotechnology

Where traditional biotechnology only ever used organisms as nature made them, modern biotechnology can deliberately rewrite the genetic material itself, alongside older cell-fusion (protoplasmic-fusion) techniques and general improvements to earlier biotechnological processes. The chapter's real centre of gravity from this point onward is genetic engineering - recombinant DNA technology - covered first as a concept in its own right, and then as the concrete, step-by-step laboratory procedure by which a working recombinant DNA molecule is actually assembled. Everything in the rest of the chapter - restriction enzymes, vectors, host cells, gene-transfer methods, screening tech …