Environmental Biotechnology

 Working Areas 

• Bioremediation and Pollution Control - Use of Biological systems to clean up a contaminated    site (other than sewage treatment) i.e. removing Heavy Metals From Soil, degrading waste through living organism (Pseudomonas for hydrocarbon oil)
• Biopesticide – it is living microbes toxic to pest, e.g., Bacillus thuringenesis spores, which are toxic to the cotton insects are sprayed over Cotton plant.
• Biofertiliser- Culturing and inoculating Nitrogen fixing microbes in the field
• Biomonitoring and Biosensors - Biosensors are devices which use a biological element (an enzyme immobilized on an electrode’s surface) to measure something (a substrate like any Pollutant) , so that a current or voltage gets generated whenever both encounter (process called Biomonitoring).
• Green Energy: The environmentally friendly sources of power and energy.
• Biogas – Biotechnology helps in detecting and Improving Methanogens Strains of bacteria to increase biogas production.
• Hydrogen from biological sources: using microorganisms having Hydrogenase and Nitrogenase genes.
• Biodiesel – It is a fuel derived from transesterification of vegetable oils or animal fat, which is used in unmodified diesel-engine vehicles.
• Reclamation of land- to restore degraded Lands, by growing stress and pollution tolerant plants.
• Plant Stress Biotechnology: Production of Stress (unfavorable environmental condition which prevents water absorption by plants) Tolerant Plants- through inserting stress tolerant genes in the plants.
• Micorrizal technology: Use of Micorrhizae (microbes which fix atmospheric nitrogen etc and thus have symbiotic association with the plants) in agriculture and forest plants cultivation.
• Biodiversity- Biodiversity is the diversity/variety of life in this planet. Diversity exists among various genus, species or within the species or varieties etc. These variations or diversities are the letters of the alphabet of life in this earth.
• Bioprospecting- Searching for new Biological resources (plants, microbes) which could be sources of natural products and Phytopharmaceuticals; Biodiversity Identification can be done Through RFLP (Restriction fragment length polymorphism) study, in which DNA is isolated from different plants of a same or different species and compared to find out any new useful gene present among the plants.
• Biodiversity Conservation:

• Plant Conservation- it is also done by Micropropagation (tissue culture) of endangered plants.

• Animal Conservation-

•  In Vitro Fertilization, has been successfully achieved for animal conservation (e.g. in Endangered Species like Panda).

• Conservation through reproductive cloning- Efforts are on to multiply the number of chettah, which has become extinct in India through   reproductive cloning, similarly as the sheep Dolly was cloned.