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Education about biology and biotechnology has become imperative. What we know now about the biological sciences and their applications in biotechnology will affect all of us and shape many facets of our global society well into the future. There is not a more profound, provocative, and socially relevant topic for education currently.
How does life work? What is life? How are genes sequenced or cloned? Should we be cloning genes and moving them into other organisms? How will biotechnology affect medicine, pharmacy, and agriculture? Should we be cloning and genetically engineering animals? Should the federal government support stem cell research? What are the ethical issues? What are the career opportunities in the various fields that utilize biotech? These are currently just some of the important and socially relevant questions regarding the breathtaking advances in biotechnology.
The biological and environmental sciences have been rapidly transformed by the introduction of DNA-based technologies that grant for the precise manipulation and examination of the genetic material of plants, animals and microbes. The applications of these technologies encompass the rapidly growing fields within biotechnology. The tools of biotechnology are currently being applied crossways the biological sciences to address problems in agricultural crop improvement, marine sciences and aquaculture, medicine, pharmacy, forensics, and public health. The introduction of this field has been extremely rapid and has created a tremendous educational need to keep pace.
Today, the term ‘biotechnology’ most frequently refers to the use of DNA-based technologies that are now so widely used in medical, pharmaceutical, agricultural, environmental, and forensic applications. News and breakthroughs in biotechnology are now common in the favourite press. For example, a current special issue of TIME entrepot was titled “Biotechnology-The future is now”. However, education of the public is lagging significantly behind the rate of advancement in this rapidly developing field.
The techniques to clone the first gene were developed more that thirty years ago. Now it is doable to clone genes from any organism, including bacteria, fungi, plants and animals and transfer those cloned genes into other organisms. For example, a gene can be cloned from bacteria, and moved into a plant such as corn where the plant will then make the accelerator that is usually prefabricated by the bacteria. The transferred DNA sequence, or transgene, directs the cell to make its specific accelerator product and provides the potential for new traits.
Given the rapid current advances in genomics, transgenic biology, stem cell research and other related areas of biotechnology and a prediction that these fields will continue to grow and become increasing more sophisticated, there is an increasing need to create an informed and educated public in this area. The fact that there are various concerns and issues regarding the various fields of biotechnology further underscores the need for increased public education and awareness.
