Biotechnology: vaccines, diagnostics and GM crops

Biotechnology uses living organisms or their parts to make products and solve problems, and it is far older than its modern reputation suggests. Fermenting bread, brewing beer, and making yoghurt are biotechnologies. What changed in the twentieth century is understanding: once scientists understood DNA and proteins, they could use biology deliberately — making insulin with engineered bacteria instead of extracting it from animals, for instance, or designing diagnostic tests that detect a pathogen's genetic material rather than waiting for symptoms to become obvious.

Vaccines are biotechnology's most celebrated product. A vaccine trains the immune system to recognise a pathogen without causing the disease, using a weakened or inactivated germ, a part of it, or instructions for making part of it. The principle dates to Edward Jenner's smallpox inoculations in 1796, and the global campaign that followed eventually led to smallpox being certified eradicated in 1980. Modern vaccine platforms can be adapted more quickly to new pathogens, but the challenges remain logistical and social as much as scientific: manufacturing at scale, keeping vaccines cold during transport, and maintaining public trust through transparent safety testing.

Diagnostics are the quieter revolution. Tests that copy and detect tiny amounts of DNA can identify infections, genetic conditions, and cancers far earlier and more precisely than symptoms alone allow. Genetic testing can reveal inherited disease risk, which helps families plan, but also raises questions about privacy, insurance, and consent: genetic information is shared with relatives and cannot be changed if leaked. The power of a diagnostic therefore depends on the rules around it — who is tested, who sees the result, and what happens next.

Genetically modified (GM) crops apply the same ideas to agriculture. By adding or altering genes, scientists have produced crops that resist pests, tolerate herbicides, or survive drought, and in India, Bt cotton — engineered to resist bollworm — was approved for commercial cultivation in 2002. Supporters point to reduced pesticide use and higher yields in many studies; critics raise concerns about seed costs, corporate control, effects on non-target insects, and the development of resistant pests. Gene editing tools such as CRISPR, for which Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020, now allow precise changes without necessarily adding foreign genes, reopening regulatory debates in many countries about how such crops should be assessed.