Ch 10Applications of Biotechnology — Class 12 Zoology, concept-first.

Before working through this chapter, it helps to recall three ideas from earlier study: the structure of DNA, how protein synthesis works, and the basics of genetic engineering.

Genetic engineering lets scientists take the gene for a useful human protein and place it into a fast-growing, easily cultured host — usually a bacterium, sometimes a yeast or even a transgenic animal…

Human insulin is a small protein hormone made by the beta cells of the pancreatic Islets of Langerhans.

Alpha lactalbumin is a small, disulphide-rich protein and the single most abundant protein in human breast milk, making up roughly a quarter of its total protein content; besides its nutritional role…

Human growth hormone (hGH), along with the related peptide hormones somatostatin and somatotropin, is secreted by the pituitary gland and drives growth and development by increasing amino-acid uptake…

Factor VIII is one of the several clotting factors needed for normal blood coagulation, and its gene sits on the X chromosome; a genetic defect there causes Haemophilia A, a sex-linked bleeding disord…

Interferons are antiviral, species-specific proteins that mammalian cells release when infected by a virus; based on their structure they are grouped into alpha, beta and gamma types, and they work by…

Traditional vaccines, built from a weakened or killed whole pathogen, have real limitations — variable quality, side effects and, for some pathogens, safety concerns about handling live material.

Gene therapy treats a hereditary disease at its root by transferring a normal, working copy of a gene into the cells of a person who carries one or more mutant alleles, using a vector to deliver it; t…

Stem cells are undifferentiated cells, found in most multicellular animals, that keep dividing by mitosis without losing their undifferentiated state — a property called self-renewal — while also bein…

Conventional diagnostic tools — microscopic examination, serum analysis, urine analysis — are indirect and often not specific enough to catch a disease early, because a pathogen usually needs to reach…

Transgenesis is the deliberate introduction of extra, foreign (exogenous) DNA — the transgene — into an animal's genome to create a new characteristic that is then stably passed on to its offspring; t…

A biological product is any substance derived from a living organism that is used to prevent or treat disease — the category spans antitoxins, bacterial and viral vaccines, blood products and hormone…

Cloning is the production of genetically identical individuals of an organism, occurring naturally through asexual reproduction or artificially in the laboratory; in biotechnology specifically, clonin…

Modern biotechnology's genetic manipulations have delivered real public benefits — cheaper drugs, better fruits and vegetables, pest-resistant crops, indigenous cures for disease — but they have also…

Because biotech products, and GMOs above all, can affect human health, other living organisms and the wider environment, their production, sale and use in India are governed by a two-part legal framew…

India's biotechnology regulation runs through several linked bodies with distinct roles. At the apex is the proposed Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI), envisaged as an autonomous stat…

Ordinary physical property — land, household goods — is tangible and protected by long-established property law, but the outputs of biotechnology (transformed microorganisms, plants, animals and the p…

Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), also called Genetically Engineered Organisms (GEOs), are deliberately created to serve useful roles in agriculture, forestry, aquaculture, bioremediation and env…

Concern over GMOs prompted the World Health Organization to set up an informal working group on biosafety in 1991, which produced a voluntary code of practice for releasing organisms into the environm…

The Evaluation section closes the chapter with 32 questions spanning every application area covered — recombinant insulin, growth hormone, Factor VIII, interferons and vaccines; gene and stem cell the…

Sample papers and previous-year board questions for this subject.