The Chambers Science and Technology Dictionary defines biotechnology as 'the use of organisms or their components in industrial or commercial processes, which can be aided by the techniques of genetic manipulation in developing e.g. novel plants for agriculture or industry.' Despite the inclusiveness of this definition, the biotechnology sector is still often seen as largely medical or pharmaceutical in nature, particularly amongst the general public. While to some extent the huge research budgets of the drug companies and the widespread familiarity of their products makes this understandable, it does distort the full picture and somewhat unfairly so. However, while therapeutic instruments form, in many respects, the 'acceptable' face of biotechnology, elsewhere the science is all too frequently linked with unnatural interference. While the agricultural, industrial and environmental applications of biotechnology are potentially very great, the shadow of Frankenstein has often been cast across them. Genetic engineering may be relatively commonplace in pharmaceutical thinking a ... read full excerpt from Environmental Biotechnology: Theory and Application ebook
