1、生物工程专业英语整理版生物工程专业英语整理版Specialized English in BiotechnologyThis material is dedicated to students majoring in Biotechnology at Hefei University. All rights reserved Contents Lesson 1 What is Biotechnology? . 3 Lesson 2 Where Did Biotechnology Begin? . 4 Lesson 3 Brief History of Biotechnology . 7 Les
2、son 4 Dogma, DNA, and Enzymes . 10 Lesson 5 Polymerase Chain Reaction - Xeroxing DNA . 12 Lesson 6 Monoclonal Antibody Technology . 14 Lesson 7 The Human Genome Project . 16 Lesson 8 Whose Genome is It, Anyway?. 19 Lesson 9 Agriculture - An Overview . 21 Lesson 10 Gene Gun Speeds Search for New Orch
3、id Colors . 24 Lesson 11 Transforming Plants . 26 Lesson 12 Animals and Animal Health . 29 Lesson 13 Biomining . 31 Lesson 14 Biofuel . 32 Lesson 15 New Foods and Food Producers . 34 Lesson 16 Blazing a Genetic Trail in Medicine . 37 Reading materials . 39 Lesson 1 What is Biotechnology? Biotechnolo
4、gy in one form or another has flourished since prehistoric times. When the first human beings realized that they could plant their own crops and breed their own animals, they learned to use biotechnology. The discovery that fruit juices fermented into wine, or that milk could be converted into chees
5、e or yogurt, or that beer could be made by fermenting solutions of malt and hops began the study of biotechnology. When the first bakers found that they could make a soft, spongy bread rather than a firm, thin cracker, they were acting as fledgling biotechnologists. The first animal breeders, realiz
6、ing that different physical traits could be either magnified or lost by mating appropriate pairs of animals, engaged in the manipulations of biotechnology. What then is biotechnology? The term brings to mind many different things. Some think of developing new types of animals. Others dream of almost
7、 unlimited sources of human therapeutic drugs. Still others envision the possibility of growing crops that are more nutritious and naturally pest-resistant to feed a rapidly growing world population. This question elicits almost as many first-thought responses as there are people to whom the questio
8、n can be posed. In its purest form, the term biotechnology refers to the use of living organisms or their products to modify human health and the human environment. Prehistoric biotechnologists did this as they used yeast cells to raise bread dough and to ferment alcoholic beverages, and bacterial c
9、ells to make cheeses and yogurts and as they bred their strong, productive animals to make even stronger and more productive offspring. Throughout human history, we have learned a great deal about the different organisms that our ancestors used so effectively. The marked increase in our understandin
10、g of these organisms and their cell products gains us the ability to control the many functions of various cells and organisms. Using the techniques of gene splicing and recombinant DNA technology, we can now actually combine the genetic elements of two or more living cells. Functioning lengths of D
11、NA can be taken from one organism and placed into the cells of another organism. As a result, for example, we can cause bacterial cells to produce human molecules. Cows can produce more milk for the same amount of feed. And we can synthesize therapeutic molecules that have never before existed. Less
12、on 2 Where Did Biotechnology Begin? With the Basics Certain practices that we would now classify as applications of biotechnology have been in use since mans earliest days. Nearly 10,000 years ago, our ancestors were producing wine, beer, and bread by using fermentation, a natural process in which t
13、he biological activity of one-celled organisms plays a critical role. In fermentation, microorganisms such as bacteria, yeasts, and molds are mixed with ingredients that provide them with food. As they digest this food, the organisms produce two critical by-products, carbon dioxide gas and alcohol.
14、In beer making, yeast cells break down starch and sugar (present in cereal grains) to form alcohol; the froth, or head, of the beer results from the carbon dioxide gas that the cells produce. In simple terms, the living cells rearrange chemical elements to form new products that they need to live an
15、d reproduce. By happy coincidence, in the process of doing so, they help make a popular beverage. Bread baking is also dependent on the action of yeast cells. The bread dough contains nutrients that these cells digest for their own sustenance. The digestion process generates alcohol (which contribut
16、es to that wonderful aroma of baking bread) and carbon dioxide gas (which makes the dough rise and forms the honeycomb texture of the baked loaf). Discovery of the fermentation process allowed early peoples to produce foods by allowing live organisms to act on other ingredients. But our ancestors al
17、so found that, by manipulating the conditions under which the fermentation took place, they could improve both the quality and the yield of the ingredients themselves. Crop Improvement Although plant science is a relatively modern discipline, its fundamental techniques have been applied throughout h
18、uman history. When early man went through the crucial transition from nomadic hunter to settled farmer, cultivated crops became vital for survival. These primitive farmers, although ignorant of the natural principles at work, found that they could increase the yield and improve the taste of crops by
19、 selecting seeds from particularly desirable plants. Farmers long ago noted that they could improve each succeeding years harvest by using seed from only the best plants of the current crop. Plants that, for example, gave the highest yield, stayed the healthiest during periods of drought or disease,
20、 or were easiest to harvest tended to produce future generations with these same characteristics. Through several years of careful seed selection, farmers could maintain and strengthen such desirable traits. The possibilities for improving plants expanded as a result of Gregor Mendels investigations
21、 in the mid-1860s of hereditary traits in peas. Once the genetic basis of heredity was understood, the benefits of cross-breeding, or hybridization, became apparent: plants with different desirable traits could be used to cultivate a later generation that combined these characteristics. An understan
22、ding of the scientific principles behind fermentation and crop improvement practices has come only in the last hundred years. But the early, crude techniques, even without the benefit of sophisticated laboratories and automated equipment, were a true practice of biotechnology guiding natural process
23、es to improve mans physical and economic well-being. Harnessing Microbes for Health Every student of chemistry knows the shape of a Buchner funnel, but they may be unaware that the distinguished German scientist it was named after made the vital discovery (in 1897) that enzymes extracted from yeast
24、are effective in converting sugar into alcohol. Major outbreaks of disease in overcrowded industrial cities led eventually to the introduction, in the early years of the present century, of large-scale sewage purification systems based on microbial activity. By this time it had proved possible to ge
25、nerate certain key industrial chemicals (glycerol, acetone, and butanol) using bacteria. Another major beneficial legacy of early 20th century biotechnology was the discovery by Alexander Fleming (in 1928) of penicillin, an antibiotic derived from the mold Penicillium. Large-scale production of peni
26、cillin was achieved in the 1940s. However, the revolution in understanding the chemical basis of cell function that stemmed from the post-war emergence of molecular biology was still to come. It was this exciting phase of bioscience that led to the recent explosive development of biotechnology. Less
27、on 3 Brief History of Biotechnology Biotechnology seems to be leading a sudden new biological revolution. It has brought us to the brink of a world of engineered products that are based in the natural world rather than on chemical and industrial processes. Biotechnology has been described as Janus-f
28、aced. This implies that there are two sides. On one, techniques allow DNA to be manipulated to move genes from one organism to another. On the other, it involves relatively new technologies whose consequences are untested and should be met with caution. The term biotechnology was coined in 1919 by K
29、arl Ereky, an Hungarian engineer. At that time, the term meant all the lines of work by which products are produced from raw materials with the aid of living organisms. Ereky envisioned a biochemical age similar to the stone and iron ages. A common misconception among teachers is the thought that biotechnology includes only
