Biotechnology has been one of the most important subjects that has been shaping the later half of the last century and will continue to flourish and expand to newer frontiers in the present century. More importantly, biotechnology will be drawing from parallel developments in other related areas such as Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Microbiology, Genetics, Bioinformatics, Nanotechnology, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Biophysics to mention only a few. The realms of biotechnology have been extended from prokaryotic to eukaryotic organisms, from the obscure bacteria and virus to higher plants and animals; from the unicellular algae to complex multicellular mammalian tissues. It has been turned into a high science topic to our everyday vocabulary over a short period of time.
It is quite remarkable to note how different branches of biotechnology have emerged from few disciplinary micro niches to well defined dynamic research areas that has and will have both substantial academic and industrial impact in the not so distant future. Several positive and negative attributes has been associated with biotechnology from gene delivery technologies to development of transgenic microbes, animals and crops; from molecular pharming to phytoremediation and from cancer and stem cell research to newly emerging epigenetics. The field has broad and wide applications and with every new developments reported in leading peer-reviewed journals across the globe the opportunities only become wider and the hopes brighter.
The editors have done an excellent job of bringing out a timely peer-reviewed volume under the banner "Advances in Biotechnology" with contributors spread across four different continents. It is quite impressive to note that the editors have tried to capture such a wide and dynamic topic in a series of captivating articles highlighting on different forms of life, both existing and newly emerging technologies in the field, protocols, methodologies and approaches, advantages, new school of thoughts from around the world, potential future prospects as also negative criticism that is associated with some frontier development of biotechnological research. The attractive illustrations for presenting complex theoretical and experimental details and overall production design are sure to win the heart of enthusiastic readers. The simplicity of the language and presentation style appealed to me a lot.
This volume is also unique as this an electronic book (e-book) moving away from the traditional concept of hard or soft cover book that we are all so used to. To my mind this new approach will make the volume more easily accessible to wider sections of readers and will be appreciated by even those who do not have access to big resource rich libraries. In addition, my sincere thoughts are that being easily available the current volume would have much higher citation rates compared to traditional hard copy versions. In this new century technology will govern our life and such approaches are welcome to reach wider audiences in future. The present volume will be beneficial to students and researchers in different fields of biotechnology and related areas.
It is a great pleasure on my part to pen a foreword for this prestigious, multi-authored, peer-reviewed, international publication on a topic that is very close to my heart. I wish the editors great success and will love to see a regular series culminating from this humble beginning. I also extend my sincere thanks to all the contributors for their excellent effort in making this volume a success.
Haruo Suzuki, Ph.D.
Dept. of Bioresource Production Science
2393 Ikenobe, Kita-gun, Miki-cho
Kagawa 761-0795, Japan
Advances in biotechnology within the last decade have resulted in the development of many powerful techniques that provide new information about food, animals and plants enhancing the health and well-being of people, environment and economy. The present day human society is aware of the benefits that can be achieved from the development of new and advanced biotechnological approaches. With unprecedented technological advancements in recent times, research in biotechnology has turned extremely sophisticated and expensive. New biotechnology tools are also offering valuable elements for the efficient utilization of a wide variety of renewable and non-renewable resources in industrialized societies.
Therefore, the motivation to edit a comprehensive volume on advances in biotechnology arose from a growing awareness of the recent advances in cell biology, molecular genetics, biochemistry and bioengineering that all have boosted the growth of biotechnology. This volume covers a wide range of applications of biotechnology. These include discussions on its impact on gene isolation and DNA delivery techniques, on markers and physical mapping, on the improvement of animal production and on bioinformatics to system biology. The newly emergent and exciting field of nano-biotechnology is reviewed as is the development of reliable, eco-friendly process for the synthesis of nano scale materials for DNA and drug delivery in both plant and animal systems. In producing this first volume of the Advances in Biotechnology series we have aimed to reflect the rapid development in the field. Probably the most significant has been the development of the nano biotechnology. This area has gained a tremendous impact on varied fields such as energy, chemical, medicine, information technology, electronics, environment application, security, space, drug and gene delivery. There are several other chapters dealing with the various dimensions of gene isolation and DNA delivery, including the virus inducing gene silencing in wheat. There are also chapters that describe biotechnology perspective and acceptance level of GMOs worldwide- a consumer and producer perspective. There are few repetitions in some related chapters as is common in any multi-authored production. However, we decided to retain them to be as close as possible to the author's view and perspectives. In the process we learnt a lot from our teachers, friends; and colleagues and well wishers; any one who lend their hands to make this volume a reality.
This volume is the culmination of the efforts of several researchers, scientists, graduate students and post-doctoral fellows across the world and are all well known and respeceted in different frontiers of biotechnology research. We sincerely believe that the book will prove to be a useful contribution not only to science, but also to the general public interest. We express our appreciation to all of the contributing authors and to all of the members of the international reviewer panel that helped us tremendously with their contributions, time, critical thoughts, and suggestions to put together this peer-reviewed edited volume. The editors are also thankful to Bentham Publisher and their team members for the opportunity to publish this volume. Lastly we thank our family members for their love, support, encouragement and patience during the entire period of this work.
Pankaj K. Bhowmik
Saikat K. Basu
List of Contributors
Pankaj K. Bhowmik
National Research Council-Plant Biotechnology Institute
Saikat K. Basu
Department of Biological Sciences
University of Lethbridge
Lethbridge Research Centre, Agriculture and Agri-Food