A presente dissertação tem por objetivo demonstrar que a maneira como vem ocorrendo o comércio transfronteiriço de alimentos geneticamente modificados gera dúvidas sobre a aptidão da legislação internacional de regulamentá-lo. Os alimentos transgênicos são resultado do avanço da biotecnologia moderna e interferem diretamente na saúde, na alimentação, na economia, nas relações de consumo e no equilíbrio ambiental. Assim, é direito indispensável de todo cidadão o poder optar e decidir a respeito do alimento que irá ingerir. Embora a biotecnologia moderna tenha trazido grandes avanços para a humanidade, ainda não é possível afirmar que os alimentos transgênicos são totalmente isentos de riscos para a saúde humana, animal e para o meio ambiente. Dessa forma, notase que existem posicionamentos opostos sobre a liberação comercial de OGMs no mundo: de um lado, o entendimento de que há inúmeros benefícios que podem advir da disseminação dos cultivos transgênicos para a agricultura e para o comércio; de outro, o entendimento de que há inúmeras incertezas quantos aos potenciais impactos negativos para a humanidade e para a natureza. Apesar das discussões permanecerem, a comercialização e o consumo de alimentos geneticamente modificados vem crescendo de maneira muito rápida e a nota-se que há uma grande preocupação internacional em se regulamentar o tema...

A prospecção tecnológica é a disciplina que trata das atividades de busca e predição de tecnologias de interesse, sendo uma importante ferramenta para empresas e governos. Já o campo da biotecnologia consiste de um dos mais férteis quanto à produção acadêmica e industrial, tendo impacto alto na economia mundial. O presente trabalho focou na intersecção destes dois assuntos, utilizando a disciplina de análises de redes sociais como intermediária. Entre os objetivos buscados estavam sugerir modificações no modelo de classificação de patentes biotecnológicas, descrever a distribuição destas patentes quando agrupadas em redes, e desenvolver uma metodologia de prospecção tecnológica com base nas rotas de desenvolvimento tecnológico presentes nas redes de patentes. As sub-áreas escolhidas para o foco do estudo foram as da biotecnologia agrícola (vegetal) e purificação de água, sendo descritas com base em suas características patentárias. Entre os resultados estão uma nova proposta de aperfeiçoamento de classificação de patentes biotecnológicas, uma nova metodologia para representações de redes de patentes com base em algoritmos de modularidade propostos por Blondel et al. (2008), sendo esta demostrada nos temas estudados. Por fim...

O objetivo deste trabalho é identificar a capacidade tecnológica e o desempenho inovador de empresas de base tecnológica do setor de biotecnologia. O caráter da pesquisa é exploratório, usando o método de estudo de caso. Os dados foram coletados por meio de observação direta, análise de documentos e de entrevistas semi-estruturadas com os diretores proprietários e diretores de P&D de empresas de biotecnologia. Nas quatro empresas pesquisadas, duas no Rio Grande do Sul, uma em São Paulo e uma no Rio de Janeiro, foram avaliados a capacidade tecnológica em três dimensões: (a) Base Tecnológica: caracterização dos recursos técnicos e humanos; (b) Estratégia Tecnológica: postura da organização diante do mercado e o estilo de gestão do empresário; (c) Inovação: esforços de capacitação e o desempenho inovador. Levando em consideração os níveis de capacidade tecnológicos das empresas para utilizar, modificar ou gerar novas tecnologias. Os resultados demonstraram que a capacidade tecnológica depende muito do nível de qualificação dos funcionários e da sua experiência no trabalho. A partir da analise considerou-se que a capacidade tecnológica adequada para estas empresas seja aquela que permite modificar e gerar novas tecnologias. Realizando esforços de atualização tecnológica...

Esta pesquisa trata, em um plano geral, do problema das relações discursivas e práticas da ciência e das ações políticas relativas à produção e difusão das novas biotecnologias nas sociedades contemporâneas. Procura-se compreender como a natureza, através das biotecnologias, não está livre dos embates políticos e situa-se no centro das principais polêmicas contemporâneas, como observado nas controvérsias a respeito dos transgênicos. Discute-se, através de entrevistas com cientistas da área da biotecnologia molecular nos estados do Paraná, Rio Grande do Sul e Santa Catarina e da análise documental especializada (nacional e internacional), como peritos compreendem a relação entre ciência e sociedade e como se estrutura a argumentação científica na avaliação das conseqüências sociais e ambientais das novas biotecnologias. Parte desta discussão é fundamentada nos estudos sociais em ciência e tecnologia (CTS) a fim de entender como um fato e artefato tecnocientífico é fruto do ordenamento de uma heterogeneidade de entidades sociais e naturais. A partir das análises documentais e das entrevistas verificou-se que a pauta de temas biotecnológicos mais abertos, de repercussão pública, como o dos alimentos geneticamente modificados...

The Laboratório Associado Institute for Biotechnology and Bioengineering (IBB) is a research unit aiming to be a strategic infrastructure for the development of the Portuguese R&D and innovation policies in the areas of Biotechnology, Bioengineering, Biomaterials and Life, Biomedical and Agricultural Sciences. IBB combines its R&D activities with advanced higher education, technology transfer, consulting and services, with the aim of fostering the industrial, health, agriculture and environmental sectors.

Jornadas "Ciência nos Açores – que futuro? Tema Ciências Naturais e Ambiente", Ponta Delgada, 7-8 de Junho de 2013.; Com os objetivos de desenvolver investigação fundamental e aplicada sobre os recursos naturais dos Açores, proporcionar ambiente científico e técnico adequado à formação de qualidade, promover a divulgação da ciência e de oferecer serviços à comunidade em que está inserido, o CIRN desenvolve investigação pluridisciplinar nas áreas de Biotecnologia, Biodiversidade e Ciências Biomédicas. Conta com uma equipa de 56 elementos, incluindo membros integrados pertencentes aos departamentos de Biologia e de Ciências Tecnológicas e Desenvolvimento, e dispõe de laboratórios completamente equipados e de técnicos especializados. Na área da biodiversidade investiga-se a taxonomia e evolução dos organismos autóctones, a estrutura e funcionamento dos ecossistemas em que estão inseridos e a sustentabilidade da respetiva gestão. Na área da biotecnologia a investigação em curso visa identificar atividades biológicas, purificar e caracterizar os compostos responsáveis por elas assim como os genes e vias metabólicas por elas responsáveis, e desenvolver e otimizar processos de produção de bioprodutos. Na área das ciências biomédicas investigam-se os fatores que modulam a variabilidade fenotípica...

The 3rd International Conference on High Pressure Bioscience and Biotechnology was held in the city of Rio de Janeiro from September 27 to September 30, 2004. The meeting, promoted by the International Association of High Pressure Bioscience and Biotechnology (IAHPBB), congregated top scientists and researchers from all over the world. In common, they shared the use of hydrostatic pressure for research, technical development, or industrial applications. The meeting consisted of invited lectures, contributed papers and a well-attended poster session. Very exciting discussions were held inside and outside the sessions, and the goals of discussing state-of-the-art data and establishing working collaborations and co-operations were fully attained.

The most productive (“star”) bioscientists had intellectual human capital of extraordinary scientific and pecuniary value for some 10–15 years after Cohen and Boyer’s 1973 founding discovery for biotechnology [Cohen, S., Chang, A., Boyer, H. & Helling, R. (1973) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 70, 3240–3244]. This extraordinary value was due to the union of still scarce knowledge of the new research techniques and genius and vision to apply them in novel, valuable ways. As in other sciences, star bioscientists were very protective of their techniques, ideas, and discoveries in the early years of the revolution, tending to collaborate more within their own institution, which slowed diffusion to other scientists. Close, bench-level working ties between stars and firm scientists were needed to accomplish commercialization of the breakthroughs. Where and when star scientists were actively producing publications is a key predictor of where and when commercial firms began to use biotechnology. The extent of collaboration by a firm’s scientists with stars is a powerful predictor of its success: for an average firm, 5 articles coauthored by an academic star and the firm’s scientists result in about 5 more products in development...

While the last 50 years of agriculture have focused on meeting the food, feed, and fiber needs of humans, the challenges for the next 50 years go far beyond simply addressing the needs of an ever-growing global population. In addition to producing more food, agriculture will have to deal with declining resources like water and arable land, need to enhance nutrient density of crops, and achieve these and other goals in a way that does not degrade the environment. Biotechnology and other emerging life sciences technologies offer valuable tools to help meet these multidimensional challenges. This paper explores the possibilities afforded through biotechnology in providing improved agronomic “input” traits, differentiated crops that impart more desirable “output” traits, and using plants as green factories to fortify foods with valuable nutrients naturally rather than externally during food processing. The concept of leveraging agriculture as green factories is expected to have tremendous positive implications for harnessing solar energy to meet fiber and fuel needs as well. Widespread adaptation of biotech-derived products of agriculture should lay the foundation for transformation of our society from a production-driven system to a quality and utility-enhanced system.

White biotechnology is a fast emerging area that concerns itself with the use of biotechnological approaches in the production of bulk and fine chemicals, biofuels, and agricultural products. It is a truly multidisciplinary area and further progress depends critically on the role of chemists. This article outlines the emerging contours of white biotechnology and encourages chemists to take up some of the challenges that this area has thrown up.

Life science and biotechnology have become a top priority in research and development in many countries as the world marches into the new century. China as a developing country with a 1.3 billion population and booming economy is actively meeting the challenge of a new era in this area of research. Owing to support from the government and the scientific community, and reform to improve the infrastructure, recent years have witnessed a rapid progress in some important fields of life science and biotechnology in China, such as genomics and protein sciences, neuroscience, systematics, super-hybrid rice research, stem cell and cloning technology, gene therapy and drug/vaccine development. The planned expansion and development of innovation in related sectors and the area of bioethics are described and discussed.

The surge of interest in bioenergy has been marked with increasing efforts in research and development to identify new sources of biomass and to incorporate cutting-edge biotechnology to improve efficiency and increase yields. It is evident that various microorganisms will play an integral role in the development of this newly emerging industry, such as yeast for ethanol and Escherichia coli for fine chemical fermentation. However, it appears that microalgae have become the most promising prospect for biomass production due to their ability to grow fast, produce large quantities of lipids, carbohydrates and proteins, thrive in poor quality waters, sequester and recycle carbon dioxide from industrial flue gases and remove pollutants from industrial, agricultural and municipal wastewaters. In an attempt to better understand and manipulate microorganisms for optimum production capacity, many researchers have investigated alternative methods for stimulating their growth and metabolic behavior. One such novel approach is the use of electromagnetic fields for the stimulation of growth and metabolic cascades and controlling biochemical pathways. An effort has been made in this review to consolidate the information on the current status of biostimulation research to enhance microbial growth and metabolism using electromagnetic fields. It summarizes information on the biostimulatory effects on growth and other biological processes to obtain insight regarding factors and dosages that lead to the stimulation and also what kind of processes have been reportedly affected. Diverse mechanistic theories and explanations for biological effects of electromagnetic fields on intra and extracellular environment have been discussed. The foundations of biophysical interactions such as bioelectromagnetic and biophotonic communication and organization within living systems are expounded with special consideration for spatiotemporal aspects of electromagnetic topology...

Metabolic flux analysis is a vital tool used to determine the ultimate output of cellular metabolism and thus detect biotechnologically relevant bottlenecks in productivity. 13C-based metabolic flux analysis (13C-MFA) and flux balance analysis (FBA) have many potential applications in biotechnology. However, noteworthy hurdles in fluxomics study are still present. First, several technical difficulties in both 13C-MFA and FBA severely limit the scope of fluxomics findings and the applicability of obtained metabolic information. Second, the complexity of metabolic regulation poses a great challenge for precise prediction and analysis of metabolic networks, as there are gaps between fluxomics results and other omics studies. Third, despite identified metabolic bottlenecks or sources of host stress from product synthesis, it remains difficult to overcome inherent metabolic robustness or to efficiently import and express nonnative pathways. Fourth, product yields often decrease as the number of enzymatic steps increases. Such decrease in yield may not be caused by rate-limiting enzymes, but rather is accumulated through each enzymatic reaction. Fifth, a high-throughput fluxomics tool hasnot been developed for characterizing nonmodel microorganisms and maximizing their application in industrial biotechnology. Refining fluxomics tools and understanding these obstacles will improve our ability to engineer highlyefficient metabolic pathways in microbial hosts.

To understand the mechanisms and epidemiology of antimicrobial resistance (AR), the genetic elements responsible must be identified. Due to the myriad of possible genes, a high-density genotyping technique is needed for initial screening. To achieve this, AR genes in the National Center for Biotechnology Information GenBank database were identified by their annotations and compiled into a nonredundant list of 775 genes. A DNA microarray was constructed of 70mer oligonucelotide probes designed to detect these genes encoding resistances to aminoglycosides, β-lactams, chloramphenicols, glycopeptides, heavy metals, lincosamides, macrolides, metronidazoles, polyketides, quaternary ammonium compounds, streptogramins, sulfonamides, tetracyclines, and trimethoprims as well as resistance transfer genes. The microarray was validated with two fully sequenced control strains of Salmonella enterica: Typhimurium LT2 (sensitive) and Typhi CT18 (multidrug resistance [MDR]). All resistance genes encoded on the MDR plasmid, pHCM1, harbored by CT18 were detected in that strain, whereas no resistance genes were detected in LT2. The microarray was also tested with a variety of bacteria, including MDR Salmonella enterica serovars, Escherichia coli, Campylobacter spp....

Driven by advancements in high-throughput biological technologies and the growing number of sequenced genomes, the construction of in silico models at the genome scale has provided powerful tools to investigate a vast array of biological systems and applications. Here, we review comprehensively the uses of such models in industrial and medical biotechnology, including biofuel generation, food production, and drug development. While the use of in silico models is still in its early stages for delivering to industry, significant initial successes have been achieved. For the cases presented here, genome-scale models predict engineering strategies to enhance properties of interest in an organism or to inhibit harmful mechanisms of pathogens or in disease. Going forward, genome-scale in silico models promise to extend their application and analysis scope to become a transformative tool in biotechnology. As such, genome-scale models can provide a basis for rational genome-scale engineering and synthetic biology.

Poly (ethylene terephthalate) fibre [PET] is the commonly used fibre for majority of end-use applications, however, the desire for improved textile properties such as wettability or hydrophilicity are increasing. Biotechnology can be defined as the application of scientific and engineering to the processing of materials by biological agents to provide goods and services. The environmental issues associated with the textile processing are not new. Currently and in the years to come, besides lower cost of operation, improved durability, wear comfort and development of new attributes for textiles, the new criteria for judging the new processes is ecology. This paves the way for biotechnology. This article throws light on the applications of enzymes for the treatment of polyester fabrics.

Biotechnology, including genetic modification, is a very important approach to regulate the production of particular metabolites in plants to improve their adaptation to environmental stress, to improve food quality, and to increase crop yield. Unfortunately, these approaches do not necessarily lead to the expected results due to the highly complex mechanisms underlying metabolic regulation in plants. In this context, metabolomics plays a key role in plant molecular biotechnology, where plant cells are modified by the expression of engineered genes, because we can obtain information on the metabolic status of cells via a snapshot of their metabolome. Although metabolome analysis could be used to evaluate the effect of foreign genes and understand the metabolic state of cells, there is no single analytical method for metabolomics because of the wide range of chemicals synthesized in plants. Here, we describe the basic analytical advancements in plant metabolomics and bioinformatics and the application of metabolomics to the biological study of plants.

The editors introduce the Biomedical Optics Express feature issue, “Advances in Optics for Biotechnology, Medicine and Surgery,” which includes 12 contributions from attendees of the 2011 conference Advances in Optics for Biotechnology, Medicine and Surgery XII.

An immunology-based in vivo screening regime was used to assess the potential pathogenicity of biotechnology-related microbes. Strains of Bacillus cereus (Bc), Bacillus subtilis (Bs), Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), and Bt commercial products (CPs) were tested. Balb/c mice were endotracheally instilled with purified spores, diluted CP, or vegetative cells (VC) (live or dead). Exposed mice were evaluated for changes in behavioral and physical symptoms, bacterial clearance, pulmonary granulocytes, and pulmonary and circulatory pyrogenic cytokines (interleukins (IL)-1β, IL-6 and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α), as well as acute phase biomarkers (fibrinogen and serum amyloid A). Except for some differences in clearance rates, no marked effects were observed in mice exposed to any spore at 106 or 107 colony forming units (cfu). In contrast, live Bc or Bt VCs (105 or 106 cfu) produced shock-like symptoms (lethargy, hunched appearance, ruffled fur, and respiratory distress), and 11–200-fold elevations in pyrogenic cytokines at 2-h post-exposure. In the study, 4-h effects included increased lethargy, ocular discharge, and 1.5–4-fold rise in circulatory acute phase markers, but no indications of recovery. Bs VC did not produce any changes in symptoms or biomarkers. After 2 or 4 h of exposure to dead VC...

Chloroplast genomes defied the laws of Mendelian inheritance at the dawn of plant genetics, and continue to defy the mainstream approach to biotechnology, leading the field in an environmentally friendly direction. Recent success in engineering the chloroplast genome for resistance to herbicides, insects, disease and drought, and for production of biopharmaceuticals, has opened the door to a new era in biotechnology. The successful engineering of tomato chromoplasts for high-level transgene expression in fruits, coupled to hyper-expression of vaccine antigens, and the use of plant-derived antibiotic-free selectable markers, augur well for oral delivery of edible vaccines and biopharmaceuticals that are currently beyond the reach of those who need them most.