• Question: What is Biotechnology?

    Asked by BluePanda92 to Luke, Dan, Jennifer, Martin, sakshisharda on 7 Mar 2018. This question was also asked by CrazyScienceUK.
    • Photo: Luke Williams

      Luke Williams answered on 7 Mar 2018:

      Biotechnology is an area of science which looks at how you can use biology/living things to make new stuff. Often you would look at things called enzymes. These are proteins found in cells (even in you!) and they make things happen inside the cell. Another way of putting this is the enzymes make chemical reactions happen – everything that every living thing does happens because of some chemical reactions somewhere.

      There are also colours of biotechnology, which is how some people split up areas by giving them a colour. Red biotechnology refers to medical biotechnology. My favourite is white biotechnology which is industrial biotechnology, so the production of chemicals (usually lots and lots of them). Blue is ocean biotechnology and green is farming and seed biotechnology. There are a few more, but I don’t think everyone agrees on the same colour scheme either.

      Great to ask things like this – if there are any other words that don’t make sense, ask me about them! That’s exactly what I am here for.

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