Dissecting Room

The Nobel Chronicles

This chapter begins by defining biotechnology. It explains how, with time, the field has expanded based on advances in science and engineering to result in the multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary modern biotechnology. The overlap between biotechnology, bioengineering, and biomedical engineering is explained, followed by a brief history of biotechnology, from ancient through classical to modern biotechnology. A color code is used to distinguish between various applications that impact the biomanufacture of industrial products (white), the development of novel therapeutic agents (blue), diagnostics and medical treatments (red), and animal and food crop production (green). The chapter culminates in a section on the key techniques in genetic engineering.

Over the past decade, antimicrobial blue light (aBL) at 400 − 470 nm wavelength has demonstrated immense promise as an alternative approach for the treatment of multidrug-resistant infections. Since our last review was published in 2017, there have been numerous studies that have investigated aBL in terms of its, efficacy, safety, mechanism, and propensity for resistance development. In addition, researchers have looked at combinatorial approaches that exploit aBL and other traditional and non-traditional therapeutics. To that end, this review aims to update the findings from numerous studies that capitalize on the antimicrobial effects of aBL, with a focus on: efficacy of aBL against different microbes, identifying endogenous chromophores and targets of aBL, Resistance development to aBL, Safety of aBL against host cells, and Synergism of aBL with other agents. We will also discuss our perspective on the future of aBL.

This chapter begins by defining biotechnology. It explains how, with time, the field has expanded as new technologies have developed based on growing scientific developments to result in a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary modern biotechnology. The applications of biotechnology include the development of new medicines, improved quality of crop plants and animals, biofarming, as well as more efficient biomanufacture of products. The overlap between biotechnology, bioengineering, and biomedical engineering is explained, followed by a history of biotechnology, from ancient through classical to modern biotechnology. A color code has been created to distinguish between the various applications. The chapter explains four biotechnology applications in detail: white (industrial), blue (marine), red (medical), and green (agricultural). The chapter ends with a description of key genetic engineering techniques.