Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Industrial Applications of Genomics,
Proteomics and Bioinformatics
Daslav HRANUELI
Faculty of Food Technology and Biotechnology, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
. Bioinformatics is a general approach underlying current paradigms in the
pharmaceutical, agricultural and bio-industrial sectors. The parallel development of
genomics, proteomics and informatics has resulted in a number of complex
approaches and brought about profound changes within the R & D philosophy of the
affected sectors. This chapter aims to provide an overview of how the scientific
approach has changed in these three areas.
Introduction
In his topic the "Biotech century", published at the very end of the 20
th
century, Jeremy
Rifkin claimed that never before in the history of humanity, had human beings been faced
with such significant new technological and economic challenges as those that lay on the
horizon. He believes that by the year 2025, our children and us might be living in a world
utterly different from anything human beings have ever experienced before [1].
The analysts of science and technology claim that the "Industrial era" is coming to
an end. The industrial era marks the final stage of the age of fire. After thousands of years
of putting fire to ore, the age of
pyrotechnology
is slowly burning out. Fire has provided
human beings with light, heat and power - the three basic necessities for survival. With
fire, human beings can melt down the inanimate world of nature and reshape it into a world
of pure utility. However, humankind is now facing three crises simultaneously: a decline of
the Earth's non-renewable energy resources, a dangerous build-up of global-warming gases
and a steady decrease in biological diversity. After five centuries of fusing, melting and
burning inanimate matter to create useful things, we now need a new operational matrix.
For the last 20 to 30 years, scientists have been splicing, recombining and mobilising living
material into economic utilities. Humanity is, therefore, moving from the age of
pyrotechnology to the age of biotechnology. For most of the pyrotechnical age, alchemy -
the unsuccessful search for a method by which lead could be transformed into gold - served
both as the philosophical framework and as conceptual guide to human beings'
technological manipulation of the inanimate matter. However, today the stage is being set
for the emergence of a new kind of perception - one that reflects the aspirations and
objectives of the new biotechnical age based on
algeny
. Joshua Lederberg's term '
algeny
',
refined by Jeremy Rifkin, means the change of the essence of living things and is dedicated
to "improvement" of existing organisms and the design of wholly new ones with the
intention of "perfecting" their performance. But algeny is much more than that. It is a way
of thinking about nature, and it is this new way of thinking that sets the course for the next
great era in history. Algeny is likely to emerge as a new philosophical framework and an
overarching metaphor for the Biotech Century. Instead of being able to change the
inanimate matter, the human race will, for the first time, be in the position to dramatically
change living beings by the direct influence on evolution.
