Biotech Basics

These are the positions the biotech industry will most need to fill over the next 10 years. Is yours on the list?

The office of Technology Assessment of the U.S. Congress defines biotechnology as "any technique that uses living organisms or their products to make or modify a product, to improve plants or animals, or to develop microorganisms for specific uses." A common misconception is the thought that biotechnology is relatively new because it only involves working with DNA and genetic engineering.

Forty years ago, viable monoclonal antibodies, imperceptibly small "magic bullets," became available for the first time. First produced in 1975 by César Milstein and Georges Köhler at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England (where Watson and Crick unraveled the structure of DNA), Mabs have had a phenomenally far-reaching effect on our society and daily life.

For thousands of years, humankind has used biotechnology in agriculture, food production, and medicine. The term is largely believed to have been coined in 1919 by Hungarian engineer Károly Ereky. In the late 20th and early 21st century, biotechnology has expanded to include new and diverse sciences such as genomics, recombinant gene techniques, applied immunology, and development of pharmaceutical therapies and diagnostic tests.

At its simplest, biotechnology is technology based on biology - biotechnology harnesses cellular and biomolecular processes to develop technologies and products that help improve our lives and the health of our planet. We have used the biological processes of microorganisms for more than 6,000 years to make useful food products, such as bread and cheese, and to preserve dairy products.

With the rapid development of biotech/pharmaceutical laboratory research, it is imperative for scientists to partner with suppliers that offer c-GMP raw materials of high quality and with efficient scale-up capabilities. By teaming up with quality manufacturers such as Avantor Performance Materials, Seidler Chemical fills the requirements that any biotech/pharmaceutical customer might have.