Biotech: Unlocking Biological Processes for Industrial Use - Essay Sample

Introduction

Biotechnology is a broad subsection in biology that examines how biological processes can be used for industrial and other means. It involves the use of the genetic structure of microorganisms to produce hormones and antibiotics. Biotechnology has its roots in basic biological sciences such as molecular biology, microbiology, cell biology, genetics, and biochemistry. It is a vital branch of biology as it has helped in the creation of more effective medicine, treatment of genetic diseases by the use of genetic engineering and advancement of agricultural procedures by improving food quality and processing. The role and importance of biotechnology in improving food safety and traceability will be discussed in this essay.

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According to (Dahabieh, Broring, & Maine, 2018) food safety and traceability have become more and more critical in modern times, ranging from safeguarding the health of customer to satisfying the requisite demands needed for international trade. For such business to become successful, it is essential to put in place standards, directives, and suggestions for the production of safe foods. The capability to prove the source and authenticity of foodstuff is of great interest to food safety supervising authorities as well as to trading associates owing to the increased transportation of food over borders (Dabbene, Gay & Tortia 2015). Shortcomings in enforcing food safety procedures not only pose a considerable risk to the economic situation of a region but also the health of humans and animals. It is, therefore, necessary to enhance the systematic capacity to discover and monitor food pollutants such as pesticide residues.

Biotechnology can be used to enhance food safety by assisting in the grouping of new emerging pathogens. Previously deployed techniques for detection of pathogenic organisms were tiresome and time-consuming, taking between 12-18 hours to get the results. By that time, food products would have already been introduced in the market. In addition to that, the advent of multi-antibiotic resilient traits in agriculture has been attributed to the misuse of antibiotics. It poses health challenges as microbes that are resistant to antibiotics are tough to deal with because of their mutation. Quick identification of these microorganisms is one way of controlling the spread of these immune traits and a biotechnological approach that constitutes the use of affinity biosensors that contains an antibiotic resistance component that aids in detection (Runge, Brossard, Scheufele, Rose, & Larson, 2017).

There are other biotechnological practices that have been used to improve food safety. Ionizing radiation has utilized to eradicate bacterial and pest contamination of food. Irradiation has proven to be very efficient in minimizing microbic pollution of food products such as meat and poultry as well as the extermination of insects that are present in food. Extrusion, on the other hand, offers a wanted shape and contexture by increasing the temperature and pressure. It also provides a reasonable approach when decreasing anti-nutritional elements in legumes (Tizard et al, 2016). What is more, aseptic packaging is an important field of food packaging that has substantially enhanced the safety and quality of food worldwide while lowering the quantity of energy required preserving and storing the food.

The rapid advancement of technology has also signaled a new age in the food manufacturing sector. Personalized nutrition has become a reality, and it has improved the health and wellbeing of people through the adoption of nutrigenomics and metabolomics. Genomics has led to the improvement of food quality and safeguarding from harmful bacteria, by the inclusion of practices such as accurate microorganism intervention and use of probiotic foods. Several technologies also provide new avenues to come up with weight management alternatives (Stewart Jr, 2016).

Biotechnology goes a long way in improving food supply as well as the enhancement of human health and wholeness. The new tools in biotechnology have helped to be more efficient in improving farm yields and also reducing the costs incurred through activities such as crop irrigation in harsh climatic conditions that were previously not undertaken which in turn has enhanced sustainability levels (Andjelkovic, Srajer Gajdosik, Gaso-Sokac, Martinovic, & Josic, 2017).

Biotechnology and Traceability of Foods

Biotechnology has also been used to improve the traceability of foods. Traceability is described as the capability to track the history of a food or animal product that is intended for human consumption from the production stage up to processing and distribution. An example would be following up cattle from birth to the end product to assess the hazard of mad cow disease and monitoring food shipments to minimize the chance of falsification (Badia-Melis, Mishra, & Ruiz-Garcia, 2015). Traceability systems are also used to notify the consumer about food composition like the source and genetic structure. It has a wide range of benefits ranging from enhancing the ability to identify and hindering food safety issues to backing sustainability objectives.

As a result of globalization, the diffusion of crops has risen because of their usefulness to the health of humans and use as food supplements. It has created a risk for breed replacement or unrestrained combination of manufactured plant products with dire implications for the health of members of the public. The putting in place of an authentic identification system is vital to assess the quality of the agricultural products. DNA-based methods have been deployed to increase the traceability of crops (Li et al, 2015). For instance, the DNA bar-coding technique has been widely used because of its intactness and adaptability.

The adoption of comprehensive testing to guarantee the safety of food and elimination of fraud by the use of non-invasive and non-destructive food-sensing techniques such as hyperspectral imaging and spectroscopy have greatly improved food traceability. Infrared spectroscopic devices use spot assessments to quick swiftly examine fat, protein, and moisture content of farm produce and share the data through cloud-based equipment. DNA-based traceability in animals is a unique method as each animal has a specific DNA code (Laliotis, Koutsouli, & Bizelis, 2018). The code can be used to distinguish it from other animals and the products that are created from it. A considerable advantage of tracking animals by using a personal DNA code is that it works well for animals obtained from vitro cultivation ("Improving Traceability in Food Value Chains through Technology Innovations", 2019). Genetic modifications in the animals can be monitored, and strains that could potentially cause harm are noted and rectified.

Technology has heralded the need for real-time tracking of farm produce to ensure their safety. Sensors that assist in categorization and monitoring such as condition tracking that monitors rumen pH and temperature gather data about food products in the supply chain. The sensors can be combined with other tools and on-farm automation devices like smart grain-drying silos and robots that aid in harvesting for more productive farming (Olsen & Borit, 2018). Various technologies such as photo and video monitoring can be employed to substantiate traceability ventures.

Molecular biology methods in food traceability have become commonplace as they guarantee the safety of products that are introduced in the market. Various genetic techniques are used to determine the authenticity of products and their source. They have numerous advantages over protein-based methods owing to their effectiveness and accuracy. The contribution of inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) has helped in food categorization. The profiling of several components that make up foodstuffs from fruit and vegetable produce to complex fish and meat has been made possible by the use of ICP-MS. Moreover, Radio-Frequency Identification helps collect data and facilitates the transfer of information between tags and readers. It also helps to monitor temperatures, humidity, and pressure thus improving food safety (O'Boyle, 2016).

Conclusion

Conclusively, biotechnology has provided numerous ways of improving food safety and traceability thus enhancing sustainability levels. The latest techniques offer the opportunity to improve the quality and quantity of food as well as being customer driven in the sense that the end product of food can be traced back to where it was grown originally or where the animal was reared until it becomes food on the table.

References

Andjelkovic, U., Srajer Gajdosik, M., Gaso-Sokac, D., Martinovic, T., & Josic, D. (2017). Foodomics and food safety: where we are. Food technology and biotechnology, 55(3), 290-307. https://doi.org/10.17113/ftb.55.03.17.5044

Badia-Melis, R., Mishra, P., & Ruiz-Garcia, L. (2015). Food traceability: New trends and recent advances. A review. Food Control, 57, 393-401.

Dabbene, F., Gay, P., & Tortia, C. (2015). Safety and traceability. Supply Chain Management for Sustainable Food Networks, 159-182.

Dahabieh, M. S., Broring, S., & Maine, E. (2018). Overcoming barriers to innovation in food and agricultural biotechnology. Trends in Food Science & Technology, 79, 204-213. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tifs.2018.07.004

Improving Traceability in Food Value Chains through Technology Innovations. (2019). Retrieved from http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Traceability_in_food_value_chains_Digital.pdf

Laliotis, G. P., Koutsouli, P., & Bizelis, I. A. (2018). Implementation of contemporary DNA based techniques on traceability process of small ruminant species and products. Journal of Advanced Veterinary and Animal Research, 5(3), 255-264. http://doi.org/10.5455/javar.2018.e274

Li, X., Yang, Y., Henry, R. J., Rossetto, M., Wang, Y., & Chen, S. (2015). Plant DNA barcoding: from gene to genome. Biological Reviews, 90(1), 157-166. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/brv.12104

O'Boyle, T. (2016). RFID: A Taste of Traceability - Food Quality & Safety. Retrieved from https://www.foodqualityandsafety.com/article/rfid-taste-traceability/

Olsen, P., & Borit, M. (2018). The components of a food traceability system. Trends in Food Science & Technology, 77, 143-149.

Runge, K. K., Brossard, D., Scheufele, D. A., Rose, K. M., & Larson, B. J. (2017). Attitudes about food and food-related biotechnology. Public Opinion Quarterly, 81(2), 577-596. https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfw038Stewart Jr, C. N. (2016). Plant biotechnology and genetics: principles, techniques, and applications. John Wiley & Sons.

Tizard, M., Hallerman, E., Fahrenkrug, S., Newell-McGloughlin, M., Gibson, J., de Loos, F., ... & Kelly, L. (2016). Strategies to enable the adoption of animal biotechnology to sustainably improve global food safety and security. Transgenic research, 25(5), 575-595. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11248-016-9965-1