Health care biotech industry (Review Paper)

Defence Science Journal

G Padmanaban¹ 

[1] Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore

关键词: Biotech;    Information technology;    Bioinformatics;    Molecular medicine;    Gene therapy;    Pharmacogenomics;    Genetic engineering;    Protein therapeutics;    Genomics;   

DOI  :  

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Defence Scientific Information & Documentation Centre

【 摘 要 】

Modern biotechnology became possiblebecause of the ability to clone genes and produce gene products barriersof species and sex. Potential entrepreneurs are getting interested inventuring into health care biotech industry, stimulated by the successstory in information technology. Products of protein therapeutics,suchas insulin, growth hormones, interferons, blood proteins, streptokinaseand vaccines have received special attention. Pharmaceutical companiesgot into the field of diagnostics, a major thrust area being products ofantigen/antibody and nucleic acid-based diagnostic kits. The ability toclone and sequence genes from a variety of organisms has culminated inthe subject of genomics. High throughput screening of thousands oforganic molecules against a battery of drug targets using roboticmachinery is the current approach to come up with lead molecules. Newdrug delivery systems for slow, sustained and direct delivery to targettissues are under way.There is hope that hereditary and metabolicdisorders may have a cure through replacements of defective genes bynormal cloned genes and by blocking the expression of unwanted genes,respectively. This mega approach would call for the availability of DNAchips, a product of collaboration between molecular biologists andelectronic engineers. The tendency now-a-days is for a marriage betweenbiotech and pharmaceutical industries. Animal cloning, spearheaded bythe birth of Dolly, has revolutionised cell biology and is of promise togenerate animal bio-vectors to produce desired protein pharmaceuticalsin milk. Stem cell research has assumed a lot of importance. In ourcountry, reasonable competence has been built-up in thefield ofbiotechnology. Around two dozen institutes carry out front-line researchin medical biotechnology. Successful commercialisation of a fewdiagnostic kits and recombinant vaccines has provided an impetus andenthusiasm to exploit biotechnology in a big way. Industry needs toleap-frog, with adequate investments.

【 授权许可】

Unknown