Biotechnology Offers Rewards and Risks

Dr. Darren Carpizo
2 min readJan 15, 2021

Biotechnology is a wide range of biological studies that involve using living things and organisms to develop and make products. The products and processes apply a wide range of aspects ranging from healthcare and medicines to biofuels usage and environmental safety. In modern technology, biotechnology has had many significant in improving the quality of life in numerous ways.

Even though biotechnology has lots of benefits, there also some problems associated with it. The pros and cons of biotechnology are illustrated below:

Rewards

1. Agricultural process

Invention and application of the biotechnological process have had increased profits to farmers. They make use of genetically modified crops to produce higher yields. Besides, biotechnology helps produce healthier and fast-growing animals.

2. Environmental purpose

Biotechnology has a significant positive environmental effect. It helps in the improvement of the ecological footprint by reducing the pollution levels in the environment. It is ideal for protecting the natural habitats of plants and animals.

3. Medicine

Biotechnology has an important application of biotechnology in medicine. It has a huge impact on the development of drugs to cure diseases. It has helped in improving the overall quality of life as well as increase life expectancy levels.

Risks

1. Biodiversity loss

Alteration of genetics in crops in a yield maximizing manner can lead to the serious loss of biodiversity. It leads to a dramatic change as the plant strains may not supply enough yields, leading to a decrease in the global food supply.

2. Health problems

The use of genetically modified organisms is connected to serious health problems. GMOs usage may not be long enough to help the judge in our health issues’ it is not a good idea to use them. Artificial flavors used in food processing are also a major contributor to health issues.

3. Epidemics

Researchers’ genetic modification may have a long-lasting effect on the environment, causing an outbreak of a pandemic. The chances are that an accident may occur from the laboratory’s mixtures at a point, causing them to spread.

Conclusion

There are so many important advantages associated with the usage of biotechnology in the modern world. However, the government should put strict measures to ensure biotechnology usage improves human existence quality.

References
Duncan, M. W., Aebersold, R., & Caprioli, R. M. (2010). The pros and cons of peptide-centric proteomics. Nature Biotechnology, 28(7), 659–664.

Originally published to drdarrencarpizo.net

--

--

Dr. Darren Carpizo

Dr. Darren Carpizo is a skilled surgical oncologist specializing in liver & pancreatic cancers at the University of Rochester Medical Center drdarrencarpizo.net