Biotechnology

Biotechnology isn't new. Examples that go back millennia:

• Bread. Yeast (a single-celled fungus) ferments sugar in dough → produces CO₂ → bubbles trapped in gluten → loaf rises. The alcohol evaporates in the oven.
• Beer and wine. Same yeast, this time the ETHANOL is the product (not the CO₂).
• Cheese. Bacteria + an enzyme (rennet) curdle milk → solid curds (cheese) + liquid whey.
• Yoghurt. Lactobacillus bacteria ferment lactose in milk → lactic acid → thickens the milk and gives the tangy taste.

All four use ANAEROBIC fermentation (without oxygen) by microbes. The microbes are doing the chemistry; we just supply the food (sugar, milk) and control the conditions.

Recent decades have added new biotechnology built around genetically modified microbes:

• Human insulin. Before 1982, insulin was extracted from pig pancreases — slow, expensive, and slightly different from human insulin. Now: scientists insert the human insulin gene into E. coli bacteria. The bacteria multiply, each one producing insulin. The insulin is harvested and purified. Cheap, fast, identical to human insulin, vegan.
• Industrial enzymes. Bacteria are grown to mass-produce enzymes used in:
  • Washing detergents (proteases break down protein stains, lipases break down fat).
  • Food (rennin for cheese; pectinase to clear fruit juice).
  • Biofuel (cellulase to convert plant waste into glucose for fermentation).
• Bioplastics. Engineered microbes can produce biodegradable plastics from sugar instead of oil.
• Single-cell protein. Mycoprotein (e.g. Quorn™) is the dried protein of a fungus grown in industrial fermenters — used as a meat substitute.

The fermenter design ensures:

• Constant temperature (usually 25-40 °C, the optimum for the microbe's enzymes).
• pH kept in range (acid build-up would kill the microbes).
• Plenty of oxygen (for aerobic microbes — bubbled in).
• Stirring to keep microbes suspended and food evenly distributed.
• Sterile — no contaminating microbes.

Benefits:

• Cheaper than extracting from animals/plants.
• Faster — microbes divide every 20 minutes.
• Consistent quality and supply.
• Can be vegan/halal/kosher if no animal genes used.
• Reduces use of finite resources (e.g. bioplastics replace oil-based ones).

Concerns:

• Risk of engineered microbes escaping the lab into the environment.
• Patents on engineered organisms concentrate control with big companies.
• Possible loss of jobs in traditional agriculture/pharma.
• Some people object on religious or philosophical grounds (e.g. mixing genes from different species).
• Long-term safety of GM products in the food chain is still debated (though there is no good evidence of harm so far).

The MYP grade-7 ethical answer doesn't say 'biotech is good' or 'biotech is bad'. It WEIGHS specific examples against specific concerns and identifies who benefits and who bears the risk.