Dr. A. S. Ninawe, Ex-Advisor, Department of Biotechnology, CGO Complex, Lodhi Road, New Delhi-110003. E-mail: ninawe@gmail.com
The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) is the nodal agency supporting research and it’s applications in life sciences, promotes and accelerates the pace of development and large scale use of biotechnology in the country. The setting up of DBT in 1986 gave a new impetus to the development in the field of modern biology and biotechnology in India. In more than three decades of its existence the department has promoted and accelerated the developments in agriculture, health care, animal sciences, environment and industry. It has achieved significant milestones in biotechnology encompassing vaccine production, genetic engineering, Pharmaceuticals, bioinformatics, bioprocessing and stem cell research. These accomplishments have far reaching implications for uplifting the devastated sections of Indian society. The biopharmaceutical, bio agriculture, bio IT and bio services are the biggest successful sectors suppliers of low cost drugs, agricultural inputs and services worldwide. It also leads to biosimilars with the most number of biosimilars approved in the domestic market.
The DBT developed Biotechnology Strategy Document, outlines India’s strength and confidence in delivering a knowledge driven bio economy. It has a mission to make India globally competitive in biotechnology research, innovation, translation, entrepreneurship development and industrial growth with an expectation of USD 150 billion bio economy by 2025. India among the top 12 destinations of biotechnology development countries sharing with approximately 3 percent share in the global biotechnology industry. It also ranked 52nd according to the global innovation index report 2019.
In India, Bangalore is widely recognized as India’s leading biotechnology hub with some of the largest companies in the country. As of 2023, there are about 160 biotechnology companies in India engaged in development and production of various products and processes. These industries valued at over 92 billion dollars and expected to reach a market value of 300 billion dollars by 2030. The growth of industry would be driven by increasing demand for vaccines and pharmaceuticals in the domestic and international markets.
Biotechnology has many regulatory and ethical issues to be addressed seriously. Therefore with the rapid expansion of biotechnology industry and its expansion in the vast range of fields, a color coded system has been developed to easily identify the primary areas of biotechnological research. There are four major area of biotechnology represented as white, green, blue and red. The white biotechnology revolves primarily around the use of biocatalysts for the industrial scale production and processing of products; involving the production and processing of products, biodegradable polymers and renewable fuel to encourage a more sustainable system.
Red biotechnology covers application of biotechnology related to clinical trials, vaccine development, disease research, antibiotic production, drug development and molecular diagnostics. The future of red biotechnology is likely to involve the expansion of genetics- focused areas such as gene therapy and regeneration medicine.
Green biotechnology plays a key role in increased production of food to meet the demand of an increasing population as well as developing less environmentally damaged fertilizers and bio pesticides. The genetic modification of plants and advancements in the field of agriculture is allowing the production of crops that can tolerate to the range of adverse environmental conditions, show resistance to insects, pests and herbicides, as well as produce increased yields.
Blue biotechnology applies to oceans and seas aims to utilize develop new products to benefit the society and the environment. It has important roles in the production of many enzymes and proteins that have been used in numerous applications from biodegradable plastics to medical products.
For thousands of years, man has been involved in such activities as brewing, food preservation and modification of food by fermentation (cheese, vinegar etc.), the manufacture of perfumes from aromatic powers and invention of primitive medications. The discovery of genetic engineering techniques via recombinant DNA technology, is responsible for the current biotechnology boom. Ago, scientists have isolated and manipulated genes and have cloned to create life itself. The work of several brilliant scientists around 1950 led to the acceptance of a chemical compound deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) as the magic substance of the gene which controls all characters of an organism. The unravelling of the DNA double helix was one of the great events in science comparable to the splitting of the atom or the publication of Darwin’s ‘Origin of Species’. It also marked the coming of age of a bold new science, Molecular Biology. At present, this has become one of the most active, exciting and productive arenas of science that has cornered much of the limelight focused on scientific developments and, naturally, has attracted some of the best talents.
Science of Molecular Biology entered Indian laboratories as early as 1960s, when basic training was being imparted on understanding of DNA structure and mechanism of its action in test tubes, mostly using bacterial system.
The Indian biotechnology industry felt essential to have a wide range of career opportunities including pharmaceuticals, agriculture, environmental science and many others. The first Indian biotechnology company to be established was Biocon which was founded by Kiran Majumdar- Shaw in 1978. This has created awareness and need to boost the biotechnology in the country with growing demand of biotechnology engineers and professionals having great scope for research, development and innovation offering a promising rewarding career path…
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