"The impact of the discovery of DNA on medicine, biotechnology and agriculture."

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"The impact of the discovery of DNA on medicine, biotechnology and agriculture."

DNA has had a massive impact on medicine and agriculture. Biotechnology, which I was less familiar with can be defined as "the application of organisms, biological systems or processes to the manufacturing and service industries" (The Royal Society, 1981). Whole organisms such as bacteria, viruses, fungi and algae are used and the estimated market is more than £40 billion per annum. Many manufacturing companies use DNA in a wide variety of industries. These include brewing (using gibberellins to speed up fermentation), cheese manufacture (ripened with Penicillium species), baking (strains of S. cerevisiae as a raising agent), waste disposal and extraction of metal and minerals (copper leached from rocks by bacteria). The two industries I am going to concentrate on are medicine and agriculture.

Since the 1930s lots of research has been put into isolating natural chemicals that have antibiotic properties (i.e. they inhibit growth of or kill other micro-organisms) from bacteria and fungi. This can be used in both medicine and agriculture, as well as veterinary science. Soil-dwelling organisms are a particularly rich source because their ecosystems have much competition, meaning that antibiotics are already formed naturally as a part of their 'armour'.

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The first antibiotic to be manufactured was penicillin, which is produced mostly by P. notatum and P. chrysogenum. The impact of this discovery was enormous because penicillin was active against all staphylococcal infections, yet was virtually non-toxic to the patient. It is still considered the most important antibiotic today. Antibiotics are also widely used to stimulate the growth of livestock in agriculture. It can be added to animal feed, killing micro-organisms including pathogens as well as promoting protein synthesis in the body.  

Ever since the cause of diabetes was discovered to be a shortage of the ...

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