With the developments in gene mapping having caused quite the storm in recent times, physicians, doctors, nanotechnologists and geneticists have become much sought-after.
Crops are now being engineered to provide nutrients that help humans to fight diseases.
This could lead to a merger of medicine and agriculture. It is also predicted that the emphasis on finding pathways that produce nutraceuticals in plants, especially those with medicinal properties, will increase over the next few years.
Time has never been better for a career in biotechnology. Emerging fields in research are offering great opportunities to students.
Case studies and trends
Mutation or aberration in genes or parts of genes can lead to diseases. It essentially causes modification of proteins, resulting in changes in physiology of cells. It is this change that causes cancer. It is now possible to find the change in sequence of genes and fashion a new line of medicine.
A company in the US called Capital Genomic, has come out with the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease by diagnosing the presence of a particular protein in the skin. The role of nanotechnology helps in delivering the medicine to parts of the brain and skin in such cases. This is how several streams of medicine merge and shape new courses and careers for the future.
Dr Autar K Mattoo, senior scientist at the USDA Sustainable Agriculture System Laboratory at Beltsville (Maryland-US), has been involved in developing genetically modified crops to try and bring about a longer shelf life and enhanced nutrients.
Dr Mattoo who works under the US Dept of Agriculture (USDA) is famous for his development of GM tomatoes that claim to fight cancer. He achieved the breakthrough while working with another Indian-American biotechnologist from Purdue University by genetically modifying the tomatoes with enhanced lycopene, a proteinous antioxidant with the power to prevent cancer.
Yet another Indian-American scientist, Dr Hamid Qazi, CEO at RX Biosciences at Rockville in (Maryland-US) is an alumni member of Banares Hindu University. He specialises in gene sequencing and has been working on softening the pulp of cactii fruits, making it seedless and enhancing sweetness.
Dr Mattoo, who has contributed over 200 research papers during his 42 years in biotechnology, says that research would proceed along creating different genes so that a crop has multiple attributes.
Work is on to remove defective or problematic genes from crops, and replacing them with better and efficient ones. These may be just a few samples of the kind of research currently happening in the US.
A vast number of American-Indian scientists can be seen working all across America and the private labs provide limitless scope for jobs in private sector. But remember, Biotechnology is not an interdisciplinary field, rather it is multi–disciplinary, involving a wide variety of distinct subject areas.
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