Biotechnological Applications in Medicine

The most far-reaching impact of biotechnology has been in medicine. Recombinant DNA technology has made it possible to mass-produce safe, effective therapeutic drugs — and because these recombinant therapeutics are structurally identical to the natural human protein, they do not trigger the unwanted immunological reactions that similar products extracted from non-human sources can cause. An estimated 30 recombinant therapeutics have been approved for human use worldwide, and around a dozen of these are currently marketed in India. …