Dela Torre, Wynona Mae G.

April 24, 2023

BS PetEng 1B1 GE-STS
STS Prof. Lea M. Camangeg

Critique Paper 4: (Recombinant DNA Technology and its Applications: A Review by S. A.

Shinde*, S. A. Chavhan, S. B.Sapkal, V. N. Shrikhande)

Synopsis

The title of the article is “Recombinant DNA Technology and its Applications: A
Review” and it is written by Shinde et al. at Dr. Rajendra Gode College of Pharmacy,
Malkapur Dist- Buldana(MS), India. It is a review of Recombinant DNA, elaborating its
background, the methods of creating it, its importance, and its applications on various living
things.

Recombinant DNA or Biotechnology plays a crucial role in the health of every human.
It provided solutions to the major factors that greatly affect our well-being, which are food,
health, and environmental issues that cause diseases. Unlike traditional medicines and old
medical approaches, rDNA uses new tools, such as molecular cloning and transformation
which gives a better product. Vaccines and a wide range of therapeutic products are some of
the notable workings of rDNA which significantly improved the lives of every person. It also
helped the agriculture sector to increase its production as it made several crops resistant to
pests and insects. In addition, biotechnology is also finding ways to address environmental
issues such as converting wastes into biofuels, treating oil spills, water contaminants, and
other toxic wastes in water.

Recombinant DNA is the general name for taking a piece of one DNA, and combining
it with another strand of DNA. It can be made through three different methods namely
Transformation, Phage Introduction, and Non-Bacterial Transformation. To produce rDNA,
three tools are needed, first, the enzymes which include the restriction enzymes, second the
vectors which help in carrying and integrating the desired gene, and lastly the host organism.
It works when the host cell expresses protein from the recombinant genes. Various
remarkable applications of biotechnology are the production of Transgenic plants and
animals that yields better quality plants and farm animals which benefits our farmers.
Moreover, it elevated our pharmaceutical industry as it develops the production of hormones,
antibiotics, and vaccines. Recombinant DNA also prevents and diagnoses diseases such as
AIDS and cholera. Gene therapy is also a product of biotechnology which helps to correct
diseases. The utilization of rDNA is undoubtedly beneficial to humanity as it not just made us
safer, but it also made our lives longer.

Critical point

Biotechnology prolonged the lives of every person. Ages before, there are insufficient and
unreliable medical treatments available in our industry which caused massive deaths
because only a number of diseases can be cured previously. Since the birth of
biotechnology, numerous therapeutics have been created and advancements in the medical
field have been done that saved the lives of the masses. Two diseases have already been
eradicated in the world, and these are smallpox and rinderpest. Smallpox has a fatality rate
of 30% whereas rinderpest has a 100% fatality rate, eradicated through vaccination in 1980
and 2011 respectively. Moreover, there are still seven diseases that the International Task
Force for Disease Eradication (ITFDE) has listed as potentially eradicable. These diseases
are — polio, Guinea worm disease, lymphatic filariasis, cysticercosis, measles, mumps, and
rubella. These diseases are considered eradicable diseases because they satisfy the criteria
for disease eradication (Roser et al., 2014). Most of the diseases were treated through
vaccination which is a product of biotechnology or rDNA, and this shows how important this
can be to humanity for it saved millions of lives around the world. Embryonic stem cell (ESC)
is one of the products of biotechnology and it could possibly cure some diseases among the
top 10 leading causes of death around the world, which are stroke, cancer, Alzheimer’s
disease, and diabetes (World Health Organization [WHO], 2020). However, clinical trials for
this are still not done, and there are ethical issues that must be settled first for this to be
approved by FDA (Khan, 2014). In addition, antibiotics, which are also a product of
recombinant DNA technology, treat infectious diseases and make many modern medical
procedures possible, including cancer treatment, organ transplants, and open-heart surgery
(Hutchings et al., 2019). Biotechnology is undeniably a great turning point in the field of
medicine. Diseases are now curable, healing is now faster, therefore people can live their
lives to the fullest knowing they are safer.

Relevance to Society

Recombinant DNA technology is relevant to us because not only it can help us to

strengthen our health, but it can also help us to address food security. Food is the most
essential basic need of humanity, therefore, the demand for it should be met. However, due
to the increasing population, higher production is also needed. Biotechnology could address
this by modifying the genetic composition of a crop making them resistant to parasites, with
this we can have a higher yield. It can also help to restore our environment by cleaning oil
spills and other water contaminants, giving us cleaner and safer drinking water. Hence,
biotechnology is indeed relevant to our society. We never knew it was already a huge part of
our lives, not until we studied about it, not until we knew that almost everything around us is
a product of biotechnology.

References
1. Max Roser, Sophie Ochmann, Hannah Behrens, Hannah Ritchie and Bernadeta
Dadonaite (2014) - "Eradication of Diseases". Published online at
OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: 'https://ourworldindata.org/eradication-of-
diseases' [Online Resource]
2. World Health Organization. Last modified December 9, 2020.
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-causes-of-death
3. Khan, F. A. (2014). Biotechnology in medical sciences. CRC Press.
4. Hutchings, M. I., Truman, A. W., & Wilkinson, B. (2019). Antibiotics: past, present
and future. Current opinion in microbiology, 51, 72-80.