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How biotechnology is advancing modern healthcare

How biotechnology is advancing modern healthcare

Human health has become a major growing concern worldwide due to infectious diseases. Biotechnology has played a dynamic role in improving the challenges regarding human health because it has flexibility to scale back global health differences through provision of promising technologies. Health, life quality and expectancy of life are increased worldwide through the services provided by biotechnology. Malnutrition mainly arises due to the lack of essential nutrients and vitamins in food and ultimately results in death. Biotechnology has played a major role in eliminating these problems by producing nutrients enriched food such as golden rice, maize, potato and soybean etc. Biotechnology has also played a crucial role in controlling the environmental pollution through biodegradation of potential pollutants.

Public health is considered a major concern worldwide both in developed and developing countries. Scientists from all over the world have made a lot of contributions in preventing the infectious diseases to cure challenges regarding human health. Global health differences are growing progressively, the vital role of science and technology for the betterment of human health could not be ignored. Biotechnology has remarkable role to find out the problems regarding human health and development in many developing countries. At the completion of the past century, infectious diseases offered considerably higher public challenges. These are relatively because of ecology fluctuation and risks related to mobility and urbanization, mismanagement of medical tools, due to environmental modification and social interruption. Vaccines are considered possibly one of the best achievements of medical advancement during the century. Smallpox has been eliminated worldwide by vaccination. It is also useful for the looming removal of polio and offering a vivid decrease in occurrence of varied transferrable infections. Research in the vaccine advancement is being used effectively for communicable diseases as well as noncommunicable diseases for instance cancer.

Pollution and the untreated waste are also major hazards for the human health. Direct exposure of these pollutants and the people must be avoided. Environmental biotechnology has revolutionized the safety of public health. It provides a systematic platform that submerge the knowledge of science and engineering. By using microorganisms, it prevents pollution by treating and biodegrading the hazardous waste. Use of present microbes in detoxification of harmful substances; complete destruction of waste through various biotechnological methods, are the main benefits of biotechnological treatment. Soil surrounding the sites contaminated with industrial wastes has high concentrations of pollutants and their degradation can be enhanced through soil remediation. The cost, amount of waste and the ability of microorganisms to degrade waste are major contemplations in environmental biotechnology. The polythene bags are non-biodegradable, i.e. they cannot be decomposed by microorganisms into the free state of nature. They remain as they are even after many years, decades. The use of polythene bags has immensely impacted the environment, natural ecosystems as well as human and animal health.

Pakistani student gets ‘Young scientist award 2021’

Pakistani student Umair Masood has received the ‘Young Scientist Award 2021’ from Lab Roots, for his outstanding contribution in the field of Molecular Diagnostic Techniques. The conference was held in February in which students from 121 countries from around the world participated. Umair Masood, who is a student at Comcast University, Abbottabad, presented two research papers at the International Conference on Molecular Biology and Biochemistry in Australia and the 13th International Conference on Tissue and Regenerative Medicine in the United States. Umair Masood won the Young Scientist award by securing 336 votes, while students from Germany and Israel could secure only 164 and 264 votes, respectively. In his first research paper, Masood has suggested ways for people with hereditary diseases to cheaply and quickly get their ailments detected. In the second paper, he talks about how the genes of any living being can be obtained and transmitted to another. So, this will not only help in the treatment of hereditary diseases but also in the treatment of other diseases.

[box type=”note” align=”” class=”” width=””]The writer is a Karachi based freelance columnist and is a banker by profession. He could be reached on Twitter @ReluctantAhsan[/box]

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