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Latest Developments in Biotechnology
By Dr. Roman Saini
Biotechnology in Indian Economy
● The biotechnology sector is one of the most significant sectors for growth in the Indian economy.
● India is ranked 12th in the world and third in Asia-Pacific in biotech.
● The share of the Indian biotech industry is about 2 percent of the global biotech industry.
● India has an excellent generic biotechnology potential owing to which foreign multinationals are collaborating with Indian companies for generic product manufacture.
● Examples: BioAsia 2017, a pharma and biotech event held by the Telangana government attracted investments of around US$ 507.3 million (Rs 3,382 crore).
● More than fifty MOUs in the biotech sector was signed during the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit-2017 worth more than 5,000 crore rupees.
● The contribution of different industries in the revenue: ○ Biopharma is the largest revenue earner and contributes to almost 62%
of the total revenue. ○ Bio-services is the next with contribution of 18 percent.○ The third is bio-agri with a contribution of 15 percent.○ Bio-industry provides 4 percent and bioinformatics contributes 1%.
● Steps taken by the government for boosting the biotech sector:○ Department of Biotechnology along with the autonomous institutions
and government-funded institutions such as National Biotechnology Board (NBTB) are working towards making India a global hub for biotech R&D.
○ The National Biotech Strategy implemented by DBT has the target of increasing the turnover from the sector to $100 billion by 2025 from $7 billion in 2016.
● The progress in natural sciences, mathematics, economics, environment, computer science etc. has led to many new developments in the field of biotechnology that are being focused for advancement. They can be categorized as follows.
1. Bioeconomy
2. Bioengineering
3. Bioinformatics
4. Biometrics
5. Bionics
6. Biosimilars
7. Biosparging
8. Biologics
9. Biomimicry
10. Bioplastics
11. Biorobotics
12. Cyborg
13. DNA Barcoding
14. Epigenetics
15. Hydroponics
16. Narco test
17. Polygraph test
18. Brain mapping test
19. Probiotics
20. Genome Editing
21. Germline Editing
Bioeconomy
What is Bioeconomy?● Biobased economy, bioeconomy or biotechonomy refers to all economic
activity derived from scientific and research activity focused on biotechnology.
● In other words, understanding mechanisms and processes at the genetic and molecular levels and applying this understanding to creating or improving industrial processes.
● It is closely linked to the evolution of the biotechnology industry. ● The evolution of the biotechnology industry and its application to agriculture,
health, chemical or energy industries is a classic example of bioeconomic activity.
● The bioeconomy is an economy using biological resources from the land and sea, as well as waste, as inputs to food and feed, industrial and energy production.
● It also covers the use of bio-based processes for sustainable industries.
● Bio-waste, for example, has considerable potential as an alternative to chemical fertilizers or for conversion into bio-energy.
Goal of Bioeconomy
1. More innovative and low-emissions economy.
2. Reconciling demands for sustainable agriculture and fisheries.
3. Food security.
4. Sustainable use of renewable biological resources for industrial purposes.
5. Ensuring biodiversity and environmental protection.
The strategy to achieve these goals focuses on three key aspects:
1. Developing new technologies and processes for the bioeconomy.
2. Developing markets and competitiveness in bioeconomy sectors.
3. Pushing policymakers and stakeholders to work more closely together.
Bioengineering
What is Bioengineering?
● The word bioengineering was coined by the British scientist and broadcaster Heinz Wolff in 1954.
● The term bioengineering is also used to describe the use of vegetation in civil engineering construction.
● It also refers to environmental modifications such as surface soil protection, slope stabilization, watercourse and shoreline protection, windbreaks, vegetation barriers including noise barriers and visual screens, and the ecological enhancement of an area.
● Biological engineering or bioengineering is the application of principles of biology and the tools of engineering to create usable, tangible, economically viable products.
● Biological engineering employs knowledge and expertise from a number of pure and applied sciences, such as mass and heat transfer, kinetics, biocatalysts, biomechanics, bioinformatics, separation and purification processes, bioreactor design, surface science, fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, and polymer science.
Applications of Bioengineering
● It is used in the design of medical devices, diagnostic equipment, biocompatible materials, renewable bioenergy, ecological engineering, agricultural engineering, and other areas that improve the living standards of societies.
● Generally, biological engineers mimic biological systems to develop products or modify and control biological systems.
● In this way, they make possible to replace, augment, sustain or predict chemical and mechanical processes.
● Bioengineers can apply their expertise to other applications of engineering and biotechnology, including genetic modification of plants and microorganisms, bioprocess engineering, and biocatalysis.
Bioinformatics
What is Bioinformatics?
● Bioinformatics is the branch of science which uses the applications of information technology and computer science into the field of molecular biology.
● It was Paulien Hogeweg who invented the term Bioinformatics in 1979 to study the processes of information technology into biological systems.
● The science of bioinformatics actually develops algorithms and biological software of a computer to analyze and record the data related to biology, for example, the data of genes, proteins, drug ingredients and metabolic pathways.
● It requires a certain storage house in which the data can be stored, organized and manipulated because the biological data is always found in the raw form.
● Biological software and databases provide the scientists the opportunity so that the data can be extracted from these databases easily and can be used by the scientists.
Applications of Bioinformatics
1. Prediction of Protein Structure:-
● It is easy to determine the primary structure of proteins in the form of amino acids which are present on the DNA molecule but it is difficult to determine the secondary, tertiary or quaternary structures of proteins.
● For this purpose either the method of crystallography is used or tools of bioinformatics can also be used to determine the complex protein structures.
2. Genome Annotation:-
● In genome annotation, genomes are marked to know the regulatory sequences and protein coding.
● It is a very important part of the human genome project as it determines the regulatory sequences.
3. Comparative Genomics:-
● Comparative genomics is the branch of bioinformatics which determines the genomic structure and functional relation between different biological species.
4. Health and Drug discovery:-
● The tools of bioinformatics are also helpful in drug discovery, diagnosis and disease management.
● Complete sequencing of human genes has enabled the scientists to make medicines and drugs which can target more than 500 genes.
● Different computational tools and drug targets have made the drug delivery easy and specific because now only those cells can be targeted which are diseased or mutated.
● It is also easy to know the molecular basis of a disease.
Biometrics
What is Biometrics?
● Biometrics is the technical term for body measurements and calculations.
● It refers to metrics related to human characteristics.
● Biometrics authentication (or realistic authentication) is used in computer science as a form of identification and access control.
● It is also used to identify individuals in groups that are under surveillance.
Biometric Identifiers:
● Biometric identifiers are the distinctive, measurable characteristics used to label and describe individuals.
● Biometric identifiers are often categorized as physiological versus behavioral characteristics.
● Physiological characteristics are related to the shape of the body.
● Examples include, but are not limited to fingerprint, palm veins, face recognition, DNA, palm print, hand geometry, iris recognition, retina and odor/scent.
● Behavioral characteristics are related to the pattern of behavior of a person, including but not limited to typing rhythm, gait, and voice.
● Some researchers have coined the term behaviometrics to describe the latter class of biometrics.
● More traditional means of access control include token-based identification systems, such as a driver's license or passport, and knowledge-based identification systems, such as a password or personal identification number.
● The token and knowledge-based methods are not so reliable as the Biometric identifiers for verifying identity because they are not unique to individuals.
● However, there are privacy concerns about the ultimate use of the information that is collected by the use of biometric identifiers.
Applications of Biometrics
● Biometric Security: Biometric technology is more accessible and has enhanced security and greater convenience.
● Border Control and Airport Biometrics: A key area of application for the biometric technology is at the border.
● Consumer and Residential Biometrics: The great demand for biometrics in the homes has been created due to the recent innovations in mobility and connectivity.
● Smartphones with fingerprint sensors, apps that allow for facial and voice recognition, mobile wallets: These are the increasingly popular ways that consumers around the world are finding biometric in their lives.
● Among the most popular and mainstream applications of biometric technology, financial identification, verification, and authentication in commerce are helpful in making banking, shopping, and account managing more safe, convenient, and accountable.
● Biometric physical access control solutions are stronger authentication methods than keys, key cards, and PINs.
Bionics
Bionics
● Bionics is the science of constructing artificial systems that have some of the characteristics of living systems.
● Bionics and cybernetics have been called the two sides of the same coin.
● Both, bionics and cybernetics use models of living systems.
● Bionics use it in order to find new ideas for useful artificial machines and systems while cybernetics uses to seek the explanation of living beings’ behavior.
● Bionics is thus distinct from bioengineering (or biotechnology).
● Bioengineering (or biotechnology) is the use of living things to perform certain industrial tasks, such as the culture of yeasts on petroleum to furnish food proteins, the use of microorganisms capable of concentrating metals from low-grade ores, and the digestion of wastes by bacteria in biochemical batteries to supply electrical energy.
● Mimicry of nature is an old idea.
● Many inventors have modeled machines after animals throughout the centuries. Copying from nature has distinct advantages.
● For example, airplanes resemble the flying bird.
● All creatures on the Earth have been evolved since more or less two billion years ago.
● And the experience of this evolution can help the construction of machines to work in an environment resembling those living creatures.
● Although the easiest way may be thought to be a direct imitation of nature.
● But this is often difficult if not impossible, among other reasons because of the difference in scale.
● According to Bionics researchers, the principles of why things work in nature than to slavishly copy details is more advantageous to understand.
Living beings can be studied from several points of view.
1. Animal muscle is an efficient mechanical motor.
2. Solar energy is stored in a chemical form by plants with almost 100 percent efficiency.
3. Transmission of information within the nervous system is more complex than the largest telephone exchanges.
4. Problem-solving by a human brain exceeds by far the capacity of the most powerful supercomputers.
Biosimilars
What is Biosimilars?
● A biosimilar is a biologic medical product which is almost an identical copy of an original product that is manufactured by a different company.
● Biosimilars are officially approved versions of original "innovator" products and can be manufactured when the original product's patent expires.
● Biosimilars made by different manufacturers will differ from the reference product and from each other, making each biosimilar a unique therapeutic option for patients.
● Follow-on manufacturers do not have access to the following
○ the originator's molecular clone and original cell bank,
○ the exact fermentation and purification process and
○ the active drug substance,
● However, they have access to the commercialized innovator product.
Biosparging
What is Biosparging?
● Biosparging is an in-situ remediation technology that uses indigenous microorganisms to biodegrade organic constituents in the saturated zone.
● In biosparging, air (or oxygen) and nutrients (if needed) are injected into the saturated zone to increase the biological activity of the indigenous microorganisms.
Usages of Biosparging
● Biosparging is a process that can be used to reduce concentrations of petroleum constituents that are dissolved in groundwater, adsorbed to the soil below the water table, and within the capillary fringe.
● Biosparging can also be used to treat the constituents those have adsorbed to soils in the unsaturated zone.
● But bioventing is typically more effective for this situation.
● The biosparging process is similar to air sparging.
● Biosparging promotes biodegradation of constituents rather than volatilization.
● But air sparging removes constituents primarily through the process of volatilization.
● In practice, either air sparging or biosparging is mostly used but volatilization and biodegradation have also happened.
● When volatile constituents are present, biosparging is often combined with soil vapor extraction or bioventing, and can also be used with other remedial technologies.
Biologics
What is Biologics?● Biological products include a wide range of products such as vaccines, blood
and blood components, allergenics, somatic cells, gene therapy, tissues, and recombinant therapeutic proteins.
● Biologics can be composed of sugars, proteins, or nucleic acids or complex combinations of these substances, or may be living entities such as cells and tissues.
● Biologics are isolated from a variety of natural sources such as human, animal, or microorganism.
● It can be produced by biotechnology methods and other cutting-edge technologies.
● Gene-based and cellular biologics, for example, often are at the forefront of biomedical research, and may be used to treat a variety of medical conditions for which no other treatments are available.
● Most biologics are complex mixtures that are not easy to identify or characterize in comparison to the most drugs that are chemically synthesized because their structure is well known.
● Biological products, including those manufactured by biotechnology, tend to be heat sensitive and susceptible to microbial contamination.
● Traditional medicines are developed by chemical synthesis.
● In contrast, Biologics are made from naturally occurring substances from animals and microorganisms or by recombinant DNA technology.
● The production of biomedicines or drugs produced through biological processes began in the 1980’s whereas vaccines have been used for more than 100 years.
● This was made possible with the development of recombinant proteins such as insulin for the treatment of diabetes.
Advantages of Biologics
● Biologics have proved particularly promising in the areas of oncology and rheumatoid arthritis, offering new hope to patients where no effective treatment was previously available.
● It is not sure that biologics will completely replace traditional drugs in near future.
● But to explore the new options for targeting diseases that were previously untreatable, it is considered a significant option that can offer additional benefits such as reduced off-target toxicity.
Biomimicry
What is Biomimicry?● Biomimetics or biomimicry is the imitation of the models, systems, and
elements of nature for the purpose of solving complex human problems.
● A closely related field is bionics.
● Living organisms have evolved well-adapted structures and materials over geological time through natural selection.
● Biomimetics has given rise to new technologies inspired by biological solutions at macro and nanoscales.
● Humans have looked at nature for answers to problems throughout our existence.
● Nature has solved engineering problems such as self-healing abilities, environmental exposure tolerance and resistance, hydrophobicity, self-assembly, and harnessing solar energy.
● Sometimes the best solution to a problem isn’t always the most complex, and, similarly, the best answer isn’t always a new one.
● Biomimicry, as it’s called, is a method for creating solutions to human challenges by emulating designs and ideas found in nature.
● It’s used everywhere: buildings, vehicles, and even materials.
Applications of Biomimicry
Antimicrobial Film Mimicking Sharkskin
● While sharks are well known for their acute sense of smell and regenerating teeth, research point out the species’ skin as its most evolutionary niche asset.
● Sharkskin is covered with so-called “dermal denticles.” (flexible layers of small teeth).
● When in motion, these dermal denticles actually create a low-pressure zone, which “pulls” the shark forward and also helps to reduce drag.
Bullet Trains inspired by Kingfisher Birds
● In Japan, as the trains entered tunnels, the vehicles would often create a loud shock wave known as “tunnel boom” which caused structural damage to several tunnels.
● The design team determined the culprit to be the trains rather blunt front nose cap.
● Kingfisher birds have specialized beaks allowing them to dive into the water to hunt while making a minimal splash.
● Utilizing this new nose based on kingfishers beak, the next generation trains were 10 percent faster, consumed 15 percent less electricity, and, most importantly, no more “boom.”
Harvesting Water like the Stenocara Beetle
● The Stenocara beetle lives in the arid African Namib desert, but it has an evolutionary hack to help it literally pull water out of the literal thin air.
● A pattern of nodes along the beetle’s back enables the creature to collect moisture from the morning fog.
● The droplets then slide off the bumps into small channels towards the beetle’s mouth.
● Academics are currently using this research to develop biomimetic patterns capable of harvesting water from the air.
Absorbing Shock like a Woodpecker:
● Woodpeckers are known for their exceptional excavating capacity.
● As woodpeckers bore holes, they experience a deceleration of 1200 gravitational pulls (Gs) nearly 22 times per second.
● To put that in perspective, a severe car crash would deliver the equivalent of 120 Gs on a passenger.
● Woodpeckers have natural structures designed to absorb mechanical shock.
● Based on their multifaceted design, an array of applications ranging from more shock-resistant flight recorders (black boxes) to micrometeorite-resistant spacecrafts can be designed.
Bioplastic
What is Bioplastic?
● Bioplastics are plastics derived from renewable biomass sources, such as vegetable fats and oils, corn starch, or microbiota.
● The agricultural by-products and used plastic bottles and other containers that use microorganisms can be used as raw materials for the production of Bioplastic.
● Common plastics, such as fossil-fuel plastics (also called petro-based polymers), are derived from petroleum or natural gas.
● Production of such plastics tends to require more fossil fuels and to produce more greenhouse gases than the production of bioplastics.
● Bioplastics are usually derived from sugar derivatives, including starch, cellulose, lactic acid.
● Bioplastics are used for disposable items, such as packaging, crockery, cutlery, pots, bowls, and straws.
● In principle, they could replace many applications for petroleum-derived plastics, however, cost and performance remain problematic.
Biorobotics
What is Biorobotics?
● Biorobotics is often referred to as a real subfield of robotics.
● Biorobotics is the study of how to make robots that emulate or simulate living beings mechanically or even chemically.
● Biorobotics is a subject that covers the fields of cybernetics, bionics and even genetic engineering as a collective study.
● The term biorobotics is also used in an opposite meaning such as making biological organisms as manipulatable and functional as robots or making biological organisms as components of robots.
● The field is in its infancy and is sometimes known as synthetic biology or bionanotechnology.
● Traditional robots do not have the mobility, flexibility and sensory abilities that is possessed by Biologically-inspired robots.
● Biorobotic technologies are often utilized to provide assistance to accommodate a deficiency, either as fully-functioning robots or highly advanced prosthetics.
● Such devices may also be used to measure the state of disease, track progress or offer interactive training experiences that can speed recovery from an injury or stroke.
● Biorobotics is being used to help train surgeons and dentists using virtual environments that speed the learning process.
● It is also being used to assist in actual surgeries, allowing for more precise and less invasive interventions.
Cybernetic Organism- Cyborg
What is Cyborg?● A cyborg (short for "cybernetic organism") is a being with both organic and
biomechatronic body parts.
● The term was coined in 1960 by Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline.
● The term cyborg is not the same thing as bionic, biorobot or android.
● It applies to an organism that has restored function or enhanced abilities due to the integration of some artificial component or technology that relies on some sort of feedback.
● As the cyborgs are commonly thought of as mammals, including humans, they might also resemble any kind of organism.
● According to some definitions, the physical attachments of the most basic technological devices to the human body have already made them cyborgs.
● In a typical example, a human with an artificial cardiac pacemaker or implantable cardioverter-defibrillator would be considered a cyborg.
● Since these devices measure voltage potentials in the body, perform signal processing, and can deliver electrical stimuli, using this synthetic feedback mechanism to keep that person alive.
● Cyborg enhancement is likely to combine mechanical modification with any kind of feedback response such as implants, especially cochlear implants.
DNA Barcoding
What is DNA Barcoding?
● DNA barcoding is a method for the quick identification of any species based on extracting a DNA sequence from a tiny tissue sample of an organism.
● DNA barcoding helps in identification of all life history stages of an organism by expanding the ability to diagnose species.
● As a biodiversity discovery tool, DNA barcoding helps to flag species that are potentially new to science.
● As a biological tool, DNA barcoding is being used to address fundamental ecological and evolutionary questions, such as how species in plant communities are assembled.
Process of DNA Barcoding
● The process of DNA barcoding entails two basic steps:
○ Building the DNA barcode library of known species and
○ Matching the barcode sequence of the unknown sample against the barcode library for identification.
● Although DNA barcoding as a methodology has not been in use for more than a decade but it has grown at a large scale in terms of the number of sequences generated as barcodes as well as its applications.
Applications of DNA Barcoding
1. Identifying plant leaves even when flowers or fruit are not available,
2. Identifying pollen collected on the bodies of pollinating animals,
3. Identifying insect larvae (which may have fewer diagnostic characters than adults and are frequently less well-known),
4. Identifying the diet of an animal, based on its stomach contents or feces and
5. Identifying products in commerce (for example, herbal supplements, wood, or skins and other animal parts)
Epigenetics
What is Epigenetics?
● Epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in gene function that do not involve changes in the DNA sequence.
● As a simplified definition, it is the study of biological mechanisms that will switch genes on and off.
● Epigenetics most often denotes changes in a chromosome that affect gene activity and expression.
● Certain circumstances in life can cause genes to be silenced or expressed over time.
● In other words, they can be turned off (becoming dormant) or turned on (becoming active).
● In certain diseases such as cancer or Alzheimer’s, various genes will be switched into the opposite state, away from the normal/healthy state.
● Even though we are all human, some of us have blonde hair or darker skin, some of us hate the taste of mushrooms or eggplants and some are more sociable than others.
● The different combinations of genes that are turned on or off is what makes each one of us unique.
Hydroponics
What is Hydroponics?● Like technology, the gardening sector is also changing.
● People are now switching to soilless gardening technique, popularly known as Hydroponics.
● Hydroponics is a subset of hydroculture, which is the growing of plants in a soilless medium, or an aquatic-based environment.
● Hydroponic growing uses mineral nutrient solutions to feed the plants in water, without soil.
● Commonly used mediums include expanded clay, coir, perlite, vermiculite, brick shards, polystyrene packing peanuts, and wood fiber.
● Hydroponics is a viable method of producing vegetables, crops and foliage plants.
● The demand for hydroponically grown produce has risen dramatically.
● With hydroponics, the plants are grown in an inert growing medium.
● And a perfectly balanced, pH adjusted nutrient solution is delivered to the roots in a highly soluble form.
● It makes easy for the plant to uptake its food as opposed to the soil where the roots need to effort to search out the nutrients and extract them.
● In this process, the energy expended by the roots is the energy better spent on vegetative growth and fruit and flower production.
Advantages of Hydroponics
● Plants can be grown anywhere as long as their growth requirements are met.
● It uses only 1/20th of water compared to traditional (soil based) gardening.
● It provides a sterile environment for plant production.
● This technique does not require pesticides, fertilizers and other chemicals, as there’s no chance of damage due to soil-borne diseases or pests.
● Crops grow two times faster in hydroponic gardening.
● It provides a controlled environment that provide the double yield leading to more production from the same amount of space.
● There is no run-off as in traditional gardening which can lead to environmental degradation due to the high proportion of calcium, phosphorus and potassium content dissolved in it.
● But in hydroponic systems, water can be conserved as it is reused multiple times.
● Vitamin content is 50% more in hydroponically grown plants as compared to conventional ones.
● There are no worries about the changing seasons, as crops can be grown all year round.
Disadvantages of Hydroponics
● Initial set up cost of the hydroponic system is high.
● It requires constant supervision.
● In case of power outage, plants will dry out.
● The water-based microorganism can be easily introduced.
● Technical knowledge is required for growing plants through hydroponics.
● Production is limited compared to field conditions
● Certain plants either take up too much space or cannot thrive without soil and are unsuitable for hydroponics.
Narco Test/Analysis
What is Narco Test?
● Narco Test refers to the practice of administering barbiturates or certain other chemical substances, most often Pentothal Sodium, to lower a subject's inhibitions.
● It aims that the subject will share information and feelings without any constraint. The subject's inhibitions are lowered by interfering with his nervous system at the molecular level.
● In this state, it becomes difficult though not impossible for them to lie.
● In such sleep-like state, efforts are made to obtain "probative truth" about the crime.
● Experts inject a subject with hypnotics like Sodium Pentothal or Sodium Amytal under the controlled circumstances of the laboratory.
Narco Analysis
● The subject which is put in a state of Hypnotism is not in a position to speak up on his own but can answer specific but simple questions after giving some suggestions.
● As a semi-conscious person cannot be able to manipulate the answers, the answers are assumed as original and spontaneous.
● The wrong dose can send the subject into the coma or even result in death.
● The rate of administration is controlled to drive the accused slowly into a hypnotic trance.
● This procedure is conducted in government hospitals after a court order is passed instructing the doctors or hospital authorities to conduct the test. Personal consent of the subject is also required.
Narco Analysis in India
● India's Central Bureau of Investigation has used intravenous barbiturates for interrogation, often in high-profile cases.
● E.g.in the interrogation of Ajmal Kasab and Krishna (a key witness in the high-profile 2008 Aarushi-Hemraj Murder Case).
● The Supreme Court in the case" Smt. Selvi vs. the State of Karnataka" has held that narco-analysis, polygraph, and brain mapping tests were to be allowed after consent of accused.
Polygraph Test
What is Polygraph Test?
● A polygraph (lie detector) measures and records several physiological indices such as blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and skin conductivity while a person is asked and answers a series of questions.
● The main aim to use the polygraph is that deceptive answers will produce physiological responses that can be differentiated from those associated with non-deceptive answers.
● Polygraph examiners do not use computerized techniques.
● They prefer to use their own individual scoring method so that they may more easily defend their own evaluations.
Process of Polygraph Test
● A Polygraph test is conducted in three phases- ○ A pretest interview, ○ Chart recording and ○ Diagnosis.
● The examiner (a clinical or criminal psychologist) prepares a set of test questions depending upon the relevant information about the case provided by the investigating officer, such as the criminal charges against the person and statements made by the suspect.
● The subject is questioned and the reactions are measured.
● A baseline is established by asking questions whose answers the investigators know.
● The sensors and a wave pattern in the graph expose the specific, perceptible physiological and behavioural changes that are performed by the person who is susceptible to say lie.
● Deviation from the baseline is taken as a sign of the lie.
● All these reactions are corroborated by other evidence gathered.
● The polygraph test was among the first scientific tests to be used by the interrogators.
Brain Mapping Test
Brain Mapping Test (P300)
● In this method is also called the “Brainwave fingerprinting”.
● The accused is first interviewed and interrogated to find out whether he is concealing any information.
● Then sensors are attached to the subject’s head and the person is seated before a computer monitor.
● He is then shown certain images or made to hear certain sounds.
● The sensors monitor electrical activity in the brain and register P300 waves.
● These waves are generated only if the subject has a connection with the stimulus i.e. picture or sound.
● The subject is not asked any questions.
● In a nutshell, brain fingerprinting test matches information stored in the brain with information from the crime scene.
● Studies have shown that an innocent suspect’s brain would not have stored or recorded certain information, which an actual perpetrator’s brain would have stored.
● In the USA, the FBI has been making use of “Brain mapping technique” to convict criminals.
Probiotics
What is Probiotics?● The wrong bacteria in the wrong place can cause problems, but the right
bacteria in the right place can have benefits.
● Probiotics are live microorganisms that may be able to help prevent and treat some illnesses.
● Promoting a healthy digestive tract and a healthy immune system are their most widely studied benefits at this time.
● These are also commonly known as friendly, good, or healthy bacteria.
● Probiotics can be supplied through foods, beverages, and dietary supplements.
Prebiotic:
● The prebiotic comes before and helps the probiotic, and then the two can combine to have a synergistic effect, known as synbiotics.
● A prebiotic is actually a nondigestible carbohydrate that acts as food for the probiotics and bacteria in your gut.
Role of Probiotics
● Probiotics are not new as they occur in the human body by birth but the food and supplement industry see them as new to human beings.
● Probiotics are believed to protect us in two ways.
● The first is the role that they play in our digestive tract. Our digestive tract needs a healthy balance between the good and bad bacteria.
● Poor food choices, emotional stress, lack of sleep, antibiotic overuse, other drugs, and environmental influences can all shift the balance in favor of the bad bacteria.
● The harmful bacteria, toxins, chemicals, and other waste products are eliminated by digestive tract that is healthy enough to filters out and eliminates these things that can damage it.
● The other way that probiotics help is the impact that they have on our immune system.
● Our immune system is our protection against germs.
● When it doesn't function properly, we can suffer from allergic reactions, autoimmune disorders, and infections.
Types of Probiotics
● There are several different kinds of probiotics and their health benefits are determined by the job that they do in the gut.
Lactobacillus:
● They are naturally found in the digestive, urinary, and genital systems.
● Foods that are fermented, like yogurt and dietary supplements, also contain these bacteria.
Lactobacillus are helpful in treating and/or preventing: ● Yeast infections, ● Bacterial vaginosis, ● Urinary tract infection, ● Irritable bowel syndrome, ● Antibiotic-related diarrhea, ● Traveler's diarrhea, ● Diarrhea resulting from Clostridium difficile, ● Treating lactose intolerance, ● Skin disorders (fever blisters, eczema, acne, and canker sores), and ● Prevention of respiratory infections
Bifidobacteria
● They make up most of the healthy bacteria in the colon.
● They appear in the intestinal tract within days of birth, especially in breastfed infants and are thought to be the best marker of intestinal health.
● Studies have shown that bifidobacteria can help with improving blood lipids and glucose tolerance.
● Bifidobacteria have been shown to effectively alleviate Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and significantly improve its symptoms like pain/discomfort, distension/bloating, urgency, and digestive disorders.
Saccharomyces boulardii:
● This is also known as S. Boulardii and is the only yeast probiotic.
● Some studies have shown that it is effective in preventing and treating diarrhea associated with the use of antibiotics and traveler's diarrhea.
● It has also been reported,
○ To prevent the recurrence of C. difficile,
○ To treat acne, and
○ To reduce the side effects of treatment for H. pylori.
Streptococcus thermophilus
This produces large quantities of the enzyme lactase, making it effective, according to some reports, in the prevention of lactose intolerance.
Enterococcus faecium
This is normally found in the intestinal tract of humans and animals.
Leuconostoc
This has been used extensively in food processing throughout human history, and ingestion of foods containing live bacteria, dead bacteria, and metabolites of these microorganisms have taken place for a long time.
Genome Editing
What is Genome Editing?
● Genome editing is a type of genetic engineering in which DNA is inserted, deleted or replaced in the genome of an organism using engineered nucleases, or "molecular scissors”.
● These nucleases or enzymes create site-specific double-strand breaks (DSBs) at desired locations.
● The induced double-strand breaks are repaired through end joining or recombination, resulting in a targeted mutation.
CRISPR Technique● CRISPR/Cas9 is a revolutionary gene editing technique that scientists have
borrowed from nature.
● CRISPRs (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) are sections of DNA.
● While CAS9 (CRISPR-associated protein 9) is an enzyme.
● Bacteria use them to disable attacks from viruses.
● Unlike other gene-editing methods, it is cheap, quick, easy, safer and more accurate to use because it relies on RNA–DNA base pairing, rather than the engineering of proteins that bind particular DNA sequences.
Germline Editing
What is Germline Editing?● Germline editing is a genome- editing technology.
● It can, in principle, be developed to make specific and targeted genetic alterations in embryos, which will be carried by all the cells of a resulting child and passed on to his/her offspring, a part of the human gene pool.
● “Germline” refers to the egg and sperm, which combine to form an embryo.
● All other techniques of genome editing currently in various stages of clinical development focus on modifying the genetic material of somatic cells, such as T cells (a type of white blood cell).
● These are not designed to affect sperm or eggs.
Benefits of Germline Editing
● By editing the DNA of egg and sperm or the embryo itself, it could be possible to correct disease genes and pass those genetic fixes on to future generations.
● It might also be possible to install genes that offer lifelong protection against infection.
Issues with Germline Editing
● Some argue that we do not understand the operations of the genome enough to make long-lasting changes to it.
● The change in only one gene could have unimaginable changes in other parts of the genome.
● And this minute change would necessarily be passed on to the future generations.
● A group of concerned people for the natural process of evolution of human generation blame genome alterations as an unethical process and advocating that we should not interfere in the natural process.
● Besides, genetic modifications that are initially envisaged to directed at curing diseases could turn into a tool for selecting the desired characteristics such as beauty, intelligence and attractiveness.
● The major concern is that whether the application of germline manipulation would change our view of the value of human life.
● If it becomes the agent of change to human values than the results are not easily acceptable for the human race.
● As this process would make the children like an asset or a commodity having the required traits and characteristics altered by the parents.
● And the respect and value for a child that it is a god gift, would be lost in the wake of alteration of human genes.
Regulation of Germline Editing
● In India, there is no law stopping research laboratories and private companies from using the technology to experiment on embryos.
● However, the Drug Controller General of India is trying to use interpretations of existing laws on drugs to clamp down on improper use.
● The guidelines listed by the Indian Council of Medical Research clearly state that germline editing is forbidden.
