Biotechnology in Medicine - Essay Example

"Biotechnology in Medicine" is a great example of a paper on health system.
Biotechnology refers to the use of living organisms and systems to create useful products. Its application is prevalent across agricultural, medical, environmental, as well as other non-food industries. Medics, in particular, employ biotechnology in a number of health care practices and technologies, such as the diagnosis and treatment of various diseases, Biopharmaceuticals Genetic Testing and Engineering (GTE), Gene Therapy and Cloning (GTC), Pharmacogenomics and Recombinant DNA Technology (Hales, 2011, p. 91). Due to the rapidly growing biotechnological expertise, significant improvements have been realized in human health care and agriculture. For instance, human insulin, which was released in 1982 as the first product of biotechnology has today grown into a commercial technology and completely found its way into industrial utilization (Klawiter, 2008, p. 14).

Manufacture of Biopharmaceuticals

Most biopharmaceuticals are often developed based on the knowledge of biotechnology. In reality, there are completely no chemicals required to synthesize most of these drugs. Instead, large protein molecules extracted from microorganisms are always used (Klawiter, 2008, p. 14). It is these proteins, which when injected into the body attack and destroy the secreted disease mechanisms. Today, scientists are conducting a broad range of studies to come up with extremely reliable biopharmaceutical drugs for the treatment of prevalent diseases, such as cancer, heart infections and hepatitis. One method that has always been used to develop such drugs is the use of bioreactors. These refer to containers, which are used to incubate microorganisms to be used in producing large protein molecules (Hales, 2011, p. 102).

GTE and GTC

Genetic Testing and Engineering (GTE) refers to the technique used to determine and control genetic-related infections in the carrier, sex and parents screening (Salzman, 2005, p. 76). It particularly involves the use of DNA probes with orders similar to the metamorphosed orders. In addition, GTE is also used to examine the paternity of children and identify criminals. On the other hand, Gene Therapy and Cloning (GTC) alludes to the technique used to diagnose and treat diseases, such as Parkinson’s disease and cancer. The technique principally helps in making corrections in the body’s genetic information by destroying or replacing damaged body cells. It can be deduced that both techniques are vital for the practice of medicine.

Pharmacogenomics and Recombinant DNA Technology

Pharmacogenomics refers to the biotechnological technique used in studying the genetic information of individuals. It mostly analyzes the human body’s response to certain treatments and drugs (Salzman, 2005, p. 77). In particular, it is a combination of both genomics and pharmaceuticals. In the contemporary medical field, the principal objective of pharmacogenomics is to develop drugs, which can be injected into persons depending on their individual genetic information. Recombinant DNA Technology, on the other hand, refers to the biotechnological technique, which helps in the identification and control of diseases and the improvement of lives through enhanced health care based on patients’ individual DNA information (Hales, 2011, p. 91). Today, both Pharmacogenomics and Recombinant DNA Technology have become outstandingly vital in the health care domain.

Conclusion

In the present-day society, virtually no scientific field is completely effective without the use of biotechnological techniques, such as Biopharmaceuticals Genetic Testing and Engineering (GTE), Gene Therapy and Cloning (GTC), Pharmacogenomics and Recombinant DNA Technology. As a result, more scientists and researchers are continually working on various studies to establish new Reliable vaccines and drugs. Medics are also finding new drugs for diseases which could not be treated easily in the past decades. Biotechnology is indeed a miraculous domain, which ought to be employed in nearly all medical fields.