Biotechnology

Biotechnology is technology based on biology, especially when used in agriculture, food science, and medicine.

Sub-fields of biotechnology

There are a number of jargon terms for sub-fields of biotechnology.

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Red biotechnology is biotechnology applied to medical processes. Some examples are the designing of organisms to produce antibiotics, and the engineering of genetic cures to diseases through genomic manipulation.

Related Topics:
Medical - Antibiotic - Genomic manipulation

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White biotechnology, also known as grey biotechnology, is biotechnology applied to industrial processes. An example is the designing of an organism to produce a useful chemical. White biotechnology tends to consume less in resources that traditional processes when used to produce industrial goods.

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Green biotechnology is biotechnology applied to agricultural processes. An example is the designing of an organism to grow under specific environmental conditions or in the presence (or absence) of certain agricultural chemicals. Green biotechnology tends to produce environmentally more friendly solutions than traditional industrial agriculture. An example of this is the engineering of a plant to express a pesticide, thereby eliminating the need for external application of pesticides.

Related Topics:
Agricultural - Pesticide

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Bioinformatics is a an interdisciplinary field which addresses biological problems using computational techniques. The field is also often referred to as computational biology. It plays a key role in various areas like functional genomics, structural genomics, and proteomics amongst others, and forms a key component in biotechnology and pharmaceutical sector.

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The term blue biotechnology has also been used to describe the marine and aquatic applications of biotechnology, but its use is relatively rare.

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