What is the difference between gmo and biotechnology

Biotechnology is one of the very highly productive applications of biology where organisms have been modified in order to gain financial benefits. However, with this definition, one might feel that the use of a circus elephant can be considered as an application of biotechnology, but it is not so. It is important to notice that biotechnology uses a biological system, product, derivative, or organism, in a technological aspect to benefit financially. The main streams that biotechnology touches are cell and tissue culture, genetic engineering, microbiology, embryology, molecular biology, and many others.

Gulping beer, tasting wine, favourite chocolate, ever-loving ice cream, and many other products are proud results of biotechnology. The cultivation of food plants, producing high-yielding crops, antibiotics, enzymes, and hundreds of other products are also involved in biotechnology. Pharmacology, medicine, and other treating means are some of other areas that are being operated through biotechnology.

PDF KB. A GMO genetically modified organism is a plant, animal, or microorganism that has had its genetic material DNA changed using technology that generally involves the specific modification of DNA, including the transfer of specific DNA from one organism to another. Scientists often refer to this process as genetic engineering. This term is not generally used to refer to plants or animals developed with selective breeding, like the common garden strawberries available today that were created from a cross between a species native to North America and a species native to South America.

The Standard defines bioengineered foods as those that contain detectable genetic material that has been modified through certain lab techniques and cannot be created through conventional breeding or found in nature. Most GMO crops are used in food for animals like cows, chickens, and fish.

They are also used to make ingredients that are then used in food products like cereal, snack chips, and vegetable oils. See picture below from NSF. Genetically modified food would include almost all the food we eat. Although many people think this means moving genes from one species to another, that is not always the case. There are several biotechnological methods of manipulating genes. Sometime this is done by actually moving genes within a species or from a closely related species.

This resulting organism is referred to as cisgenic. Gene editing is another method of manipulating DNA. Gene editing may involve deletion, insertion, silencing or repression.

With genetic engineering, scientists can change the traits of plants and animals by inserting DNA pieces, whole genes, or long stretches of DNA segments from many different organisms. These genetic sequences can also be taken from the same species or be newly made up. Scientists can also delete or swap DNA sequences in organisms or introduce genetic material to silence genes.