Biotechnology is technology based on biology, especially when used in agriculture, food science, and medicine.

The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity has come up with one of many definitions of biotechnology: !" "Biotechnology has contributed towards the exploitation of biological organisms or biological processes through modern techniques, which could be profitably used in medicine, agriculture, animal husbandry and environmental cloning." Biotechnology is a popular term for the generic technology of the #!st century. $lthough it has been utili%ed for centuries in traditional production processes, modern biotechnology is only &' years old and in the last decades it has been witnessing tremendous developments. Bioengineering is the science upon which all Biotechnological applications are based. (ith the development of new approaches and modern techni)ues, traditional biotechnology industries are also ac)uiring new hori%ons enabling them to improve the )uality of their products and increase the productivity of their systems. Before the !*+'s, the term, biotechnology, was primarily used in the food processing and agriculture industries. ,ince the !*+'s, it began to be used by the (estern scientific establishment to refer to laboratory-based techni)ues being developed in biological research, such as recombinant DN$ or tissue culture-based processes. .n fact, the term should be used in a much broader sense to describe the whole range of methods, both ancient and modern, used to manipulate organic to reach the demands of human. ,o the term can be defined as, /The application of indigenous and0or scientific 1nowledge to the management of 2parts of3 microorganisms, or of cells and tissues of higher organisms, so that these supply goods and services of use to human beings. #" There has been a great deal of tal14and money4poured into biotechnology with the hope that miracle drugs will appear. (hile there do seem to be a small number of efficacious drugs, in general the biotech revolution has not happened in the pharmaceutical sector. 5owever, recent progress with monoclonal antibody based drugs, such as 6enentech7s $vastin suggest that biotech may finally have found a role in pharmaceutical sales.