Biotech License » Between

What are the major differences and similarities between bovine, porcine and human blood?

admin — Sat, 01 May 2010 13:05:57 +0000

Would somebody who has worked with animal blood please share some thoughts. I heard that porcine blood is closest to human blood in terms of blood compositions such as red, white cell, and coagulation property, shear rate, viscosity, etc. That’s why the biotech, medical, and pharmaceutical industries use pig for preclinical trials before human trials. What could be the challenges by “assuming porcine, bovine blood work as well as human blood”? Thank you in advance.

Whats the difference between Biology and Biotechnology?

admin — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 21:58:08 +0000

I am a rising sophomore and I’m really interested in biology and working at the CDC. Next year, I’m enrolled in Biomedical technology and biology. I was just wondering what the difference between biology and biotechnology is…

thanks =]

what is the difference between genteic engineering and biotechnology?

admin — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 03:12:22 +0000

i have been studying genetics for my exams and i am confusing biotechnology with genetic engineering…i need specific definitions ..of the two terms…thanks

What’s the difference between Biotech and Biomedical engineering?

admin — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 06:10:24 +0000

I thought I wanted to be a biomedical engineer, but now I’m also looking at things like biotech/bioengineering. Are they both engineering specializations? What is the difference between the two or is there really not one besides the name? Which will be more in demand in the future and which has more flexibility? They both look interesting but I’m just confused.

What Is The Difference Between Biotech And A Pharmaceutical Company?

admin — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 08:36:45 +0000

Given that the pharmaceutical industry has been around a while, most people have a pretty firm grasp of what drug companies do. They manufacture and market the myriad medications we find both behind and over the pharmacist’s counter.
What then, is biotechnology, which also works to develop new drugs? What is the difference between biotech and traditional drug companies?
Not much anymore, and the lines of distinction will continue to blur, say those in the field.
“It’s a very complicated matrix right now, where it wasn’t in the past,” says Phyllis Gardner, associate professor of medicine at Stanford University and former vice president of Alva Corp., one of the very first biotech companies. “There is no clear line, but there are some distinguishing features.”
Comparing biotech companies to pharmaceutical companies, she says, can be done two ways: as a business model and as a field of research.
Pharmaceutical companies traditionally employed what Ms. Gardner calls “empirical screening” to develop drugs. “They would take natural compounds with a known physiological side effect, like reducing blood pressure, and they would screen for that effect,” she says.
Chris Littlehales, director of communications for Burrill and Co., an investment firm that focuses on the biotech industry, likens pharma to throwing a lot of spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.
“The traditional way of making a drug was like analytical chemistry,” she says.
For instance, she says, everyone knows that aspirin exists and it reduces fever and aches. But it also causes stomach problems in some people. So you want to make something that has the same benefits, without the side effects.
“If you’re a medicinal chemist you will analyze it and figure out what part of aspirin causes the problem,” Ms. Littlehales says. “So you fool around and take this out and put this in, and you have to keep testing every little variation against the target. Sooner or later you hit on something.”
Biotechnology, on the other hand, is defined by Informagen Inc., an online biotech information resource, as using “genetic engineering” technology in its research. Ms. Gardner says biotech was originally based around molecules, called monoclonal antibodies, which mimicked certain proteins or other molecules to target a specific cell area.
This type of research began around 1972, when Stanford’s Paul Berg and Stanley Cohen, and Herbert Boyer of the University of California at San Francisco were the first to successfully splice genes from viruses to create molecules of recombinant DNA.
Ms. Littlehales says genetic engineering was touted to be the cure for just about every disease. Subsequent years saw an explosion of biotech companies, hoping to capitalize on the technology.
“It used to be the premise that biotech companies were young, emerging companies that developed products in the biological areas of DNA, RNA, etc. They were young entrepreneurial companies,” says Scott Morrison, who leads the U.S. Life Sciences division at Ernst & Young.