BIOTECHNOLOGY: Recent Advances and Diverse Applications

Biotechnology has substantial influence in diverse areas ranging from agriculture to environmental problems and recent technological developments have immense potential to deliver in years to come. There is a need for judicious use of this technology to address problems related with food and nutritional security, health issues and environmental issues to mention few. There is no dearth about the books on biotechnology but few of them have dealt with recent developments covering diverse aspects of biotechnology. This edited book entitled “Biotechnology: Recent Advances and Diverse Applications” is an attempt to fill the gap by incorporating chapters reflecting different applications of biotechnology by respective subject experts. Overall an effort has been made to cover the recent developments in biotechnology in diverse areas with potential benefits to human society in large. It is anticipated that this book will be beneficial to students, teachers and researchers to appreciate the developments and potential of biotechnology in future. There are many excellent texts available which cover the fundamentals of biotechnology, recombinant DNA technology, functional food and nutraceutical food AND mathematical biology etc. There are also several very good works in the areas of molecular markers, recombinant vaccine, genetic engineering in disease diagnosis and therapy, probiotics and prebiotics with several modern approaches. This work is an attempt to cover the middle ground between these above extremes. Chapter 1 covers the basic concepts and applications biotechnology with reference to 21st century. Chapter 2 contains recent trends for utilization of molecular markers in crop improvement. Chapter 3 deals with DNA vaccine and role in disease prevention specifically cancer. Chapter 4 explains the brief overview of molecular markers and their applications in fisheries development system. In Chapter 5, the different issues of plant proteinase inhihibitors are discussed. Chapters 6 contain molecular genetic mapping and QTL analysis. Chapter 7 deals with the genetically engineered molecules for diagnosis and therapy of allergenic disorders. Chapter 8 explains the current status and importance of probiotic food Products and humen health. Chapter 9 covers the history and principle of engineering for hybrid enzymes. Chapter 10 deals expending opportunities in animal biotechnology. Chapter 11 explains the methods and application of mathematical biology in the area of modern biotechnology. Chapter 12 deals with the functional food and human health. Chapter 13 explains the current status of environmental biotechnology. Chapter 14 give an insight about marker assisted selection in rice with the latest developments, Role of biotechnology for tomato production is nicely given in Chapter 15. Chapter 16 is solely dedicated to RNAi interference and its applications in crop development. Chater 17 is about various bioinformatics tools used in daily research and about data management. Various biotechnological innovations are highlighted for smart agriculture in Chapter 18. Chapter 19 emphasized on abiotic stress response for crop plants in the present scenario of changing climatic conditions. Chapter 20 covers different molecular biological promoters and their functions. Chapter 21 reflects the role of apoptosis in plant systems and various mechanisms are explained here. It is hoped that this book would be useful to students, teachers, Scientists, food manufacturers and policy makers and to all those interested in opportunities in the areas of biotechnology.