Biotechnology

Any technological application that uses biological systems, living organisms, or derivatives thereof to make or modify products or processes for specific use. Biotechnology is best understood as a group of affiliated disciplines, ranging from food production to bioterrorism alert sensors. Certain advances in biotechnology have important military applications and significant ramifications for national security.

Today's biotechnology revolution began in the 1970s, as scientists learned to alter the genetic makeup of living organisms by processes other than traditional selective breeding practices. Fundamental achievements in molecular biology over the last three decades have given significant growth to the multidisciplinary field of biotechnology. Scientific advances such as genomics have allowed investigators to map genes and identify their functions. Using the tools of genetic engineering, scientists are now able to transfer valued genes from one species to another. Analysts are agreed that applying 20th-century advances in chemistry and physics to life sciences will make biotechnology the science of the 21st century.

As a part of the recently launched war on terrorism, Sandia National Laboratories, whose main location is in New Mexico, is greatly expanding its efforts in biotechnology, particularly in such areas as the creation of new materials that might aid in the war on terrorism. Securing new energy sources is another field within biotechnology. The U.S. Departments of Energy and Agriculture have begun a national effort to create renewable energy sources with bioenergy, thereby lessening U.S. dependence on fossil fuels (the largest reserves of which are located in the Middle East).

The National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) at the National Institutes of Health was established in March 2004 to provide advice to federal departments and agencies to minimize the possibility that knowledge and technologies emanating from biological research will be misused to threaten public health or national security. The NSABB is a critical element in current federal initiatives that promote biosecurity in life science research, and, as such, it monitors dual-use research, or biological research with legitimate scientific purpose that may be misused to pose a biologic threat to public health or national security. In addition to new technologies or processes, dual-use research could encompass studies that yield information on how to increase a toxin's lethality, manipulate threat agents that might impair vaccine effectiveness, and enable the weaponization of a biological agent or toxin.