Biotechnology
Bioengineering is a Strong StepIn a small village in Africa, a one year old boy named Kwame is exposed to the bacteria, neisseria meningitidis. Three years earlier, the same agent had infected his sister. The difference is that she developed meningitis. A week later she died. Kwame was protected, because he had received an anti-meningitis vaccine, but he got his vaccine in an unusual way. The bananas that he eats have been modified to express the gene (DNA) for the vaccine protein. (Purves, 351) Little anecdotes like this would not be possible without biotechnology, in this case, plants that are genetically modified. Advanced discoveries in the field of biotechnology, found in the 1960's and the 1970's, have fueled many changes in agriculture. I work in a warehouse that sells vegetable seeds to farmers all around the world. Many of the customers are organic growers and request seed that has not been treated with chemicals. According to one of my co-workers who has been in the business for almost a decade, D. Chavez says that consumers thrive on organically grown products, thus they prefer their product to grown and developed without toxic chemicals. (Chavez) The only difficulty in modifying plants in a lab is
Henney, she says that she is confident because there is very little, if any, transfer of genes from plants to bacteria. People will inevitably receive it and it will also benefit those who can not afford the medicine. The consumption of fast, greasy food, sodas, excessive exposures to sunlight with out sunblock, all of these examples are unhealthy things we already do knowing the negative consequences. During this period, irrigation, pesticides, fertilizers, and new varieties of seed had increased yields as much as in the past and in the future, food production may not match population growth. He planted generations and generations of peas with different characteristics and observed the outcome. In May of 1998, the results were reported in the journal Nature Medicine. Therefore, why would people be so skeptical about an FDA approved product? Biotechnology is a risk, but the positive outcome outweighs the negative. By about 8000 BC, however, the first farmers decided to stay in one place and grow certain plants as crops - creating agriculture and civilization, in that order. 1700s Naturalists begin to identify many kinds of hybrid plants - the offspring of breeding between two varieties of plants. 1861 Louis Pasteur defines the role of micro-organisms and establishes the science of microbiology. Edible vaccines, which are genetically implanted inside a food and keep need no refrigeration, are being investigated to help aid in less costly medicine for intestinal diseases. Science has come up with many alternative ways to shield crops from insects organically, but genetically.
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Acceptance Essays
