Question

What is the importance of biotechnology application in medicine? How does biotechnology help in the production of human insulin?

Answer 1

Biotechnology is the use of biology to develop technologies and products for the welfare of human beings. It has various applications in different fields such as therapeutics, diagnostics, processed food, waste management, energy production, genetically modified crops etc.

Biotechnological applications in medicine: The use of biotechnology in medicine is known as medicinal biotechnology. These technological processes have made an immense impact in the area of healthcare by enabling mass production of safe and more effective therapeutic drugs. At present, about 30 recombinant therapeutics have been approved for human use all over the world. The main applications of biotechnology in medicine are genetically engineered insulin, production of vaccines through genetic engineering, gene therapy and molecular diagnosis.

Genetically Engineered Insulin:

Insulin is a hormone produced by beta cells of the pancreatic islets, and it regulates the metabolism of carbohydrates, fats and protein by promoting the absorption of glucose. Diabetes occurs when insulin-producing cells are damaged or destroyed and stop producing insulin. Insulin in cases of diabetes was earlier extracted from the pancreas of cattle and pigs. Insulin from such sources caused some patients to develop an allergy or other types of reactions. Insulin consists of two short polypeptide chains: chain A and chain B, linked together by disulphide bridges. In mammals, including humans, insulin is synthesised as a pro-hormone (needs to be processed before it becomes a fully mature and functional) which contains an extra stretch called the C peptide. This C peptide is not present in the mature insulin and is removed during maturation. The main challenge during the production of insulin using rDNA techniques was getting insulin assembled into a mature form. An American company named Eli Lilly in 1983, prepared two DNA sequences corresponding to A and B chains of human insulin and introduced them in plasmids of E. coli to produce insulin chains. Chains A and B were produced separately, extracted and combined by creating disulphide bonds to form human insulin.