: Bernard R. Glick, Cheryl L. Patten, Terry L. Delovitch
: Medical Biotechnology
: ASM Press
: 9781683673477
: 1
: CHF 93.90
:
: Medizin
: English
: 100
: DRM
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB

The future is now-this groundbreaking textbook illustrates how biotechnology has radically changed the way we think about health care

Biotechnology is delivering not only new products to diagnose, prevent, and treat human disease but entirely new approaches to a wide range of difficult biomedical challenges. Because of advances in biotechnology, hundreds of new therapeutic agents, diagnostic tests, and vaccines have been developed and are available in the marketplace.

In this jargon-free, easy-to-read textbook, the authors demystify the discipline of medical biotechnology and present a roadmap that provides a fundamental understanding of the wide-ranging approaches pursued by scientists to diagnose, prevent, and treat medical conditions.

Medical Biotechnology is written to educate premed and medical students, dental students, pharmacists, optometrists, nurses, nutritionists, genetic counselors, hospital administrators, and individuals who are stakeholders in the understanding and advancement of biotechnology and its impact on the practice of modern medicine.

Hardcover, 700 pages, full-color illustrations throughout, glossary, index.

1
Fundamental Technologies


Molecular Cloning


Molecular biotechnology uses a variety of techniques for isolating genes and transferring them from one organism to another. At the root of these technologies is the ability to join a sequence of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) of interest to a vector that can then be introduced into a suitable host. This process is known asrecombinant DNA technology or molecular cloning. A vast number of variations on this basic process has been devised. Development of the core technologies depended on an understanding of fundamental processes in molecular biology, bacterial genetics, and nucleic acid enzymology (Box 1.1). The beginning of the application of these technologies for the purpose of manipulating DNA has been credited to Stanley Cohen of Stanford University, Stanford, California, who was developing methods to transfer plasmids, small circular DNA molecules, into bacterial cells, and Herbert Boyer at the University of California at San Francisco, who was working with enzymes that cut DNA at specific nucleotide sequences. They hypothesized that Boyer’s enzymes could be used to insert a specific segment of DNA into a plasmid and then the recombinant plasmid could be introduced into a host bacterium using Cohen’s method. Within a few years, the method was used successfully to produce human insulin, which is used in the treatment of diabetes, inEscherichia coli. In the 25 years since the first commercial production of recombinant human insulin, more than 200 new drugs produced by recombinant DNA technology have been used to treat over 300 million people for diseases such as cancer, multiple sclerosis, cystic fibrosis, and cardiovascular disease and to provide protection against infectious diseases. Moreover, over 400 new drugs are in the process of being tested in human trials to treat a variety of serious human diseases.

Preparation of DNA for Cloning


In theory, DNA from any organism can be cloned. The target DNA may be obtained directly from genomic DNA, derived from messenger ribonu