Insulin used to come from pig pancreases. Now it comes from bacteria engineered to produce human insulin. That is biotechnology — the use of living systems to develop products. It spans medicine, agriculture, and industry. The tools are cells, enzymes, and DNA.

The field took off in the 1970s with recombinant DNA. Scientists learned to cut and paste genes, moving them between organisms. Genentech produced the first recombinant insulin in 1978. Since then, biotech has given us vaccines, gene therapies, drought-resistant crops, and enzymes for laundry detergent.

Major applications

• Medicine: drugs, vaccines, gene therapy, diagnostics
• Agriculture: genetically modified crops, pest resistance
• Industry: enzymes, biofuels, biodegradable plastics
• Environment: bacteria that clean oil spills

CRISPR gene editing has made biotech faster and cheaper. It also raises ethical questions. Should we edit human embryos? Who decides what counts as a defect? The science moves quickly. The rules lag behind.