17^th Euro Biotechnology Congress September 25-27, 2017 Berlin, Germany

The concept of bioeconomy covers the agricultural industry and all manufacturing sectors and their respective service areas, which develop, produce, process, reprocess or use them in any form biological resources such as plants, animals and microorganisms. Thus, it achieves a variety of industries such as agriculture, forestry, horticulture, fisheries and aquaculture, plant and animal breeding, food and beverage, wood, paper, leather, textile, chemical and pharmaceutical industries up to branches of energy industry.

Healthcare biotechnology refers to a medicinal or diagnostic product or a vaccine that consists of, or has been produced in, living organisms and may be manufactured via recombinant technology (recombinant DNA is a form of DNA that does not exist naturally. It is created by combining DNA sequences that would not normally occur together). This technology has a tremendous impact on meeting the needs of patients and their families as it not only encompasses medicines and diagnostics that are manufactured using a biotechnological process, but also gene and cell therapies and tissue engineered products. Biotechnology offers patients a variety of new solutions such as: Unique, targeted and personalized therapeutic and diagnostic solutions for particular diseases or illnesses, An unlimited amount of potentially safer products, Superior therapeutic and diagnostic approaches, Higher clinical effectiveness because of the biological basis of the disease being known, Development of vaccines for immunity, Treatment of diseases, Cultured Stem Cells and Bone Marrow Transplantation, Skin related ailments and use of cultured cell, Genetic Counseling, Forensic Medicine, Gene Probes, Genetic Fingerprinting, Karyotyping.

Systems and Synthetic Biotechnology is a relatively new field in biomedical research. It focuses on engineering new or modified signaling proteins to create desired signaling pathways in the cell. Every living cell is an extremely complex machine expressing thousands of different proteins. Due to superb regulation, many cells, such as photoreceptors and other neurons in vertebrates, can live for decades. Cells can also self-reproduce by division, where both daughter cells are perfectly viable. Natural selection (the “blind watchmaker”, to use Dawkins’ expression) spent hundreds of millions of year to achieve this perfection. Due to elucidation of the intricacies of cellular regulatory mechanisms we can now play evolution on our time scale: re-design proteins and signaling pathways to achieve our ends.Systems and Synthetic Biology is a novel field that finds its origin at the intersection of biology and engineering. It involves designing and construction of biological systems or devices that can be applied in varied domains to get specified results. It’s a multidisciplinary effort made by scientists to understand the functioning of biological organisms, cells & genes and implementation of artificial genetic processes to give specific characteristics to an organism. It can even be used to develop a completely new biological system.

Genetic engineering refers to those techniques used to modify the genotype of an organism to change its phenotype. That is, genetic engineering manipulates an organism's genes to make it look or act differently. DNA technology refers to the methods used to modify, measure, manipulate and manufacture within the DNA molecule. Because genes are stored in DNA, genetic engineering is done with DNA technology. But DNA technology can be used for more than genetic engineering. With genetic engineering, scientists attempt to manipulate the genetic structure of an organism to make a change in the way an organism looks or functions. 

Pharmaceutical biotechnology is a relatively new and growing field in which the principles of biotechnology are applied to the development of drugs. A majority of therapeutic drugs in the current market are bioformulations, such as antibodies, nucleic acid products and vaccines.  The pharmaceutical companies that have marketed bioformulations use biotechnology principles such as recombinant DNA technology to design more effective protein-based drugs, such as erythropoietin and fast-acting insulin. The future of pharmaceuticals belongs to protein based therapeutics. Designing stable and effective therapeutic proteins requires knowledge of protein structure and the interactions that stabilise the structure necessary for function. Unlike pharma companies, biotechnology focus primarily on research and development, this begins with the discovery of novel compounds, which then convoy into the clinic for further testing.

Nanobiotechnology is beginning to allow scientists, engineers, and physicians to work at the cellular and molecular levels to produce major benefits to life sciences and healthcare. In the next century, the emerging field of nanotechnology will lead to new biotechnology based industries and novel approaches in medicine. Nanobiotechnology is that branch of nanotechnology that deals with biological and biochemical applications or uses. Nanobiotechnology often studies existing elements of living organisms and nature to fabricate new nano-devices. Generally, nanobiotechnology refers to the use of nanotechnology to further the goals of biotechnology. Some of the innovative challenges in the field of biology are: New molecular imaging techniques, Quantitative analytical tools, Physical model of the cell as a machine, Better ex-vivo tests and improvement in current laboratory techniques and Better drug delivery systems.

Biotechnology has been practiced for a long time, as people have sought to improve agriculturally important organisms by selection and breeding. An example of traditional agricultural biotechnology is the development of disease-resistant wheat varieties by cross-breeding different wheat types until the desired disease resistance was present in a resulting new variety. Genetic engineering technologies can help to improve health conditions in less developed countries. Genetic engineering can result in improved keeping properties to make transport of fresh produce easier, giving consumers access to nutritionally valuable whole foods and preventing decay, damage, and loss of nutrients. Benefits of Agriculture Biotechnology include Increased crop productivity, Enhanced crop protection, Improvements in food processing, Improved nutritional value, Environmental benefits, Better flavor, Fresher produce.

Environmental biotechnology is biotechnology that is applied to and used to study the natural environment. Environmental biotechnology could also imply that one try to harness biological process for commercial uses and exploitation. The International Society for Environmental Biotechnology defines environmental biotechnology as "the development, use and regulation of biological systems for remediation of contaminated environments (land, air, water), and for environment-friendly processes (green manufacturing technologies and sustainable development)

The elimination of a wide range of pollutants and wastes from the environment is an absolute requirement to promote a sustainable development of our society with low environmental impact. Biological processes play a major role in the removal of contaminants and they take advantage of the astonishing catabolic versatility of microorganisms to degrade/convert such compounds.

Bioenergy is the chemical energy contained in organic matter (biomass) which can be converted into energy forms that we can use directly, such as electricity, heat and liquid fuel.Biomass is any organic matter of recently living plant or animal origin. Unlike coal, the organic matter is not fossilised.Traditionally mainly woody biomass has been used for bioenergy, however more recent technologies have expanded the potential resources to those such as agricultural residues, oilseeds and algae. These advanced bioenergy technologies allow for the sustainable development of the bioenergy industry, without competing with the traditional agricultural industry for land and resources. Bioenergy plants can range from small domestic heating systems to multi-megawatt industrial plants requiring hundreds of thousands of tonnes of biomass fuel each year. A variety of technologies exists to release and use the energy contained in biomass.They range from combustion technologies that are well proven and widely used around the world for generating electricity generation, to emerging technologies that convert biomass into liquid fuels for road, sea and air transport.

Bioprocess Engineering combines biotechnology and engineering for the manufacturing of materials from renewable feedstocks.  This field includes fundamental biomolecular research on proteins, enzymes and microbes, as well as work on biosensors, bioseparations and bioreactors.  Applications include food processing and preservation; pharmaceutical, nutraceutical and sweetener production; air and wastewater treatment; bio-based structural motifs for supramolecular architectures; microfluidics for bioreactors and DNA chips; bioenergy; and applications in the pulp and paper industry.  There are natural links to biomedical applications, such as drug metabolism, tissue engineering and bio-based therapeutic treatments.

The applications of biotechnology are so broad, and the advantages so compelling, that virtually every industry is using this technology. Developments are underway in areas as diverse as pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, textiles, aquaculture, forestry, chemicals, household products, environmental cleanup, food processing and forensics to name a few. Biotechnology is enabling these industries to make new or better products, often with greater speed, efficiency and flexibility. Biotechnology holds significant promise to the future.

Due to multidisciplinary nature of the field of biotechnology, a wide range of different branches of science have made significant contributions to the fast development of this field. Some of these disciplines are- biochemical engineering, physiology, biochemistry, food science, material science, bioinformatics, immunology, molecular biology, chemical engineering etc. Biotechnology is also improving the lives of people around the world. Biotechnology also has affected economy in a positive way due to the creation and growth of small business, generation of new jobs. Agricultural biotechnology has reduced our dependency on pesticides. Bioremediation technologies are being used to clean our environment by removing toxic substances from contaminated ground water and soils. about 60% of the biotechnology products in the market are healthcare products and 21% are products used in agriculture and animal husbandry. A considerable amount of efforts in research are on, to use and extract benefit from this interesting and upcoming field for the betterment of human life and the environment. Many biochemical companies are involved in the production of biotechnological products using genetic engineering techniques

Algal biotechnology is a technology developed using algae. The objective of the Micro algal Biotechnology Group is to further the understanding of the ecology of microalgae. This will assist with the development of commercial-scale micro algal culturing techniques for the production of bioactive compounds, aquaculture feed, fine chemicals, and renewable fuels. Additionally, environmental applications such as CO2 bioremediation, control of excessive algal growth and development of management strategies for water supply managers are investigated. Transgenesis in algae is a complex and fast-growing technology. Selectable marker genes, promoters, reporter genes, transformation techniques, and other genetic tools and methods are already available for various species and currently ~25 species are accessible to genetic transformation. Fortunately, large-scale sequencing projects are also planned, in progress, or completed for several of these species.