Biotechnology Research Roadmap - Science and Innovation

2.4.2 Agriculture biotechnology
The global agricultural biotechnology sector is
currently dominated by GM crop applications. Today,
just six countries 19 account for 99% of the world’s
commercially grown GM crops. Their rate of adoption
has increased 30 fold from the time the technology was
first introduced in 1996; from 1.7 million hectares to
90 million hectares in 2005. 20
Agricultural biotechnology is, however, much more than
GM crops. Primary production sectors are forecast to
be transformed through both the sustained productivity
enhancement of GM and non-GM crops and animals,
and the diversification of primary sector commodities to
produce more value-added outputs, like bioactives and
nutraceuticals.
2.4.3 Industrial biotechnology
Industrial and environmental biotechnologies are
often referred to as the “third wave” of developments in
biotechnology. Industrial biotechnology today chiefly
consists of bioprocessing technologies (using microorganisms
and enzymes) for specialty products such as
detergents, novel foods and some pharmaceuticals.
Future projections envisage a growth in the production
of renewable commodity products (for example,
biopolymers, fuels and energy from woody biomass),
supported by a growth in the scale of production
capacity and the emergence of “biorefineries”
producing multiple product streams (analogous to
today’s petrochemical refineries).
There has been a significant upswing in investments
and interest in industrial biotechnology over the
past 12-18 months. This has primarily been directed
at biofuels technologies driven by energy security
concerns, the rising cost of oil and the need to reduce
petroleum dependency as well as concerns around
greenhouse gas emissions from petroleum fuels. Large
markets are only just starting to become established
for industrial biotechnology products such as biofuels
and the economics of commodity bio-products has
not been proven at a large-scale. By its very nature
industrial biotechnology is more broad and diffuse
and the success of the sector is more dependent
on technologies filtering through to different
manufacturing sectors. 21 However, the productivity
gains and cost reductions that industrial biotechnology
processes are adding to areas like pharmaceutical
manufacturing are becoming increasingly significant.
2.5 Security and defence
In the wake of events like the September 11, 2001 attacks,
many nations have reviewed and updated their strategies
to counter bio-terrorism. These updated “biodefence”
strategies and suggested surveillance requirements are
strongly underpinned by the development of several
biotechnology based counter-measures.
Biotechnologies underpinning biodefence systems fall
under the following response categories: early warning
through biological detection systems; and advanced
vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics. Emerging
diagnostic devices (biosensors) are currently showing
particular promise and will have spill-over benefits
for other areas like food safety and environmental
monitoring.
19
United States, Canada, Argentina, China, Brazil and South Africa
20
James, Clive (2005),“Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2005”
21
Sheridan, Cormac (2006),“Diversa restructures, raising questions over bioprospecting”, Nature Biotechnology, v24, n.3, p.229
12 Roadmaps for Science : biotechnology research