Ch 10Biotechnology and its Applications — Class 12 Biology, concept-first.

Biotechnology, in the broadest sense, is the use of living organisms or their components to make or modify a product for a specific purpose.

The principle of genetic engineering rests on a small number of biological facts that, together, make it possible to move a gene from one organism into a completely different one and have it still fun…

Cutting DNA at a precise, predictable location is the first practical requirement of genetic engineering, and it is solved by a class of bacterial enzymes called restriction endonucleases, or restrict…

Cutting out a gene of interest is only useful if that gene can then be carried into a host cell and copied there indefinitely.

Once a suitable vector has been engineered, two further practical problems remain: how to tell, among all the host cells exposed to the vector, which ones actually picked up a recombinant (insert-carr…

The overall process of recombinant DNA technology can be thought of as a sequence of discrete, well-defined steps, each of which solves one specific practical problem on the way from 'a gene we want'…

Even after a gene of interest has been isolated and cut out, the amount of that specific DNA fragment obtained directly from a cell or tissue sample is usually far too small to work with efficiently i…

Having cut the vector and the gene of interest with the same (or compatible) restriction enzyme, and having amplified the gene fragment if needed, the next steps are to permanently join the two pieces…

Successfully getting a host cell to take up a recombinant plasmid and express the gene of interest is a major milestone, but it is not, by itself, the finished product.

Human insulin is a small protein hormone, produced naturally by beta cells in the pancreas, that regulates blood glucose levels; a deficiency or malfunction in insulin production or action causes diab…

Vaccines work by exposing the immune system to a harmless version or component of a disease-causing pathogen, training the immune system to recognise that pathogen and mount a rapid, protective respon…

Gene therapy is an approach to treating a genetic disorder that attempts to correct the disorder at its actual source -- the defective or missing gene itself -- rather than merely managing its symptom…

A stem cell is a cell that has two defining properties that distinguish it from most other cells in the body: first, the ability to divide and renew itself over long periods, sometimes throughout an e…

Bacillus thuringiensis is a naturally occurring, soil-dwelling bacterium that, during a particular stage of its life cycle, produces crystalline protein inclusions known as delta-endotoxins, or more c…

A transgenic animal is an animal that has had a foreign gene -- often called a transgene -- deliberately and permanently introduced into its genome, usually by injecting the foreign DNA directly into…

Genetic engineering makes it possible to introduce a new trait into an organism far more quickly, and in a far more targeted way, than any traditional breeding method could achieve -- but this same po…

Biopiracy refers to the practice of individuals, companies, or institutions -- typically based in economically developed countries -- using the biological resources (such as native plant or animal spe…

This chapter brought together the two halves of biotechnology that the WBCHSE syllabus groups into a single Chapter 10: the underlying principle and process of recombinant DNA technology, and the majo…

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