Introduction to Applied Biology

Applied biology looks at how the principles of biology are put to practical use in everyday economic and medical life. This unit covers two broad areas. The first is the improvement of domesticated animals for human benefit — dairy cattle, poultry, honey bees and fish — through selective breeding, controlled breeding technologies and proper management. The second is biomedical technology and diagnostics — how a hormone like insulin is structured and produced, how vaccines and gene therapy work, what makes a cell cancerous, and the imaging and monitoring techniques (X-rays, MRI, ECG, EEG, ELISA) that let clinicians examine the body without surgery.