How Modern Biotechnology Develops
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has predicted several biotechnologies with a high probability of entering the market by 2030. The use of these biotechnologies is estimated by "business as usual" to account for nearly 3% of GDP in developed countries, with these biotechnologies being used to produce 35% of chemical products, 50% of agricultural products, and 80% of medicines. Moreover, biotechnology could account for a large share of GDP in non-OECD countries (oecd.org).
Today the main industries using biotechnology are such as medicine, agriculture, industry, energy, pharmaceuticals, and the food industry. This is due to the fact that innovative biotechnological solutions allow to reduce the cost of production, such as in the food industry, in the medical industry contribute to the development of biomedicine, and in the pharmaceutical industry develop the segment of bio-pharmaceuticals. And the most important thing is that both completely new products and products replacing traditional ones are released on the market.
What are today's advances in biotechnology? Let's take a look. Thanks to the development of biotechnology today we have achieved a large number of functional foods aimed at reducing the risk of developing various diseases, which is achieved by a high level of micronutrient content of 25-50% of the daily requirement. And this is no small achievement, because the emergence and development of this segment makes it possible to significantly reduce the burden on medicine. As an example of such functional products, various cereals or flakes are enriched with protein, and thus more protein enters the body, whereas standard analogues do not solve this problem.
In addition, as noted in the study "Improving global food security through accelerated plant breeding," new plant varieties and new animal breeds have emerged today, and biotechnology has helped accelerate breeding processes (www.sciencedirect.com).
At the same time, of course, many areas in the field of biotechnology are still under development. In particular, these include the following:
- technologies for producing recombinant proteins;
- technologies for the development of biopositive building materials that have a positive effect on health;
- products of bioorganic synthesis./li>
And finally, the key issue of climate change, where biotechnology can also play a significant role, as well as other green industries.