Biotechnology is the area of biology that uses living processes, organisms or systems to manufacture

products or technology intended to improve the quality of human life. Depending on the technology,
tools and applications involved, biotechnology can overlap with molecular biology, bionics,
bioengineering, genetic engineering and nanotechnology.

https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/biotechnology

From its inception, biotechnology has maintained a close relationship with society. Although
now most often associated with the development of drugs, historically biotechnology has been
principally associated with food, addressing such issues as malnutrition and famine. The history
of biotechnology begins with zymotechnology, which commenced with a focus
on brewingtechniques for beer. By World War I, however, zymotechnology would expand to
tackle larger industrial issues, and the potential of industrial fermentation gave rise to
biotechnology. However, both the single-cell protein and gasohol projects failed to progress
due to varying issues including public resistance, a changing economic scene, and shifts in
political power.
Yet the formation of a new field, genetic engineering, would soon bring biotechnology to the
forefront of science in society, and the intimate relationship between the scientific community,
the public, and the government would ensue. These debates gained exposure in 1975 at
the Asilomar Conference, where Joshua Lederberg was the most outspoken supporter for this
emerging field in biotechnology. By as early as 1978, with the development of synthetic
human insulin, Lederberg's claims would prove valid, and the biotechnology industry grew
rapidly. Each new scientific advance became a media event designed to capture public support,
and by the 1980s, biotechnology grew into a promising real industry. In 1988, only five proteins
from genetically engineered cells had been approved as drugs by the United States Food and
Drug Administration (FDA), but this number would skyrocket to over 125 by the end of the
1990s.
The field of genetic engineering remains a heated topic of discussion in today's society with the
advent of gene therapy, stem cell research, cloning, and genetically modified food. While it
seems only natural nowadays to link pharmaceutical drugs as solutions to health and societal
problems, this relationship of biotechnology serving social needs began centuries ago.

Biotechnology arose from the field of zymotechnology or zymurgy, which began as a search for a better
understanding of industrial fermentation, particularly beer. Beer was an important industrial, and not
just social, commodity. In late 19th-century Germany, brewing contributed as much to the gross
national product as steel, and taxes on alcohol proved to be significant sources of revenue to the
government.[2] In the 1860s, institutes and remunerative consultancies were dedicated to the
technology of brewing. The most famous was the private Carlsberg Institute, founded in 1875, which
employed Emil Christian Hansen, who pioneered the pure yeast process for the reliable production of
consistent beer. Less well known were private consultancies that advised the brewing industry. One of
these, the Zymotechnic Institute, was established in Chicago by the German-born chemist John Ewald
Siebel.
The heyday and expansion of zymotechnology came in World War I in response to industrial needs to
support the war. Max Delbrück grew yeast on an immense scale during the war to meet 60 percent of
Germany's animal feed needs.[2] Compounds of another fermentation product, lactic acid, made up for a
lack of hydraulic fluid, glycerol. On the Allied side the Russian chemist Chaim Weizmann used starch to
eliminate Britain's shortage of acetone, a key raw material for cordite, by fermenting maize to
acetone.[3] The industrial potential of fermentation was outgrowing its traditional home in brewing, and
"zymotechnology" soon gave way to "biotechnology."
With food shortages spreading and resources fading, some dreamed of a new industrial solution. The
Hungarian Károly Ereky coined the word "biotechnology" in Hungary during 1919 to describe a
technology based on converting raw materials into a more useful product. He built a slaughterhouse for
a thousand pigs and also a fattening farm with space for 50,000 pigs, raising over 100,000 pigs a year.
The enterprise was enormous, becoming one of the largest and most profitable meat and fat operations
in the world. In a book entitled Biotechnologie, Ereky further developed a theme that would be
reiterated through the 20th century: biotechnology could provide solutions to societal crises, such as
food and energy shortages. For Ereky, the term "biotechnologie" indicated the process by which raw
materials could be biologically upgraded into socially useful products.[4]
This catchword spread quickly after the First World War, as "biotechnology" entered German
dictionaries and was taken up abroad by business-hungry private consultancies as far away as the
United States. In Chicago, for example, the coming of prohibition at the end of World War I encouraged
biological industries to create opportunities for new fermentation products, in particular a market for
nonalcoholic drinks. Emil Siebel, the son of the founder of the Zymotechnic Institute, broke away from
his father's company to establish his own called the "Bureau of Biotechnology," which specifically
offered expertise in fermented nonalcoholic drinks.[1]
The belief that the needs of an industrial society could be met by fermenting agricultural waste was an
important ingredient of the "chemurgic movement."[4] Fermentation-based processes generated
products of ever-growing utility. In the 1940s, penicillin was the most dramatic. While it was discovered
in England, it was produced industrially in the U.S. using a deep fermentation process originally
developed in Peoria, Illinois.[5] The enormous profits and the public expectations penicillin engendered
caused a radical shift in the standing of the pharmaceutical industry. Doctors used the phrase "miracle
drug", and the historian of its wartime use, David Adams, has suggested that to the public penicillin
represented the perfect health that went together with the car and the dream house of wartime
American advertising.[2] Beginning in the 1950s, fermentation technology also became advanced enough
to produce steroids on industrially significant scales.[6] Of particular importance was the
improved semisynthesis of cortisone which simplified the old 31 step synthesis to 11 steps.[7] This
advance was estimated to reduce the cost of the drug by 70%, making the medicine inexpensive and
available.[8] Today biotechnology still plays a central role in the production of these compounds and
likely will for years to come.[9][10]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_biotechnology

Mhel Isaac C. Silagan 8 – Quartz Biotechnology