BIOFERTILIZER
BIOFERTILIZER
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Biofertilizer is a substance that contains living microorganisms which on application to seed, root or soil mobilize the availability of nutrients by their biological activity in particular, and help build up the micro-flora and in turn the soil health in general. Biofertilizers add nutrients through the natural processes of Nitrogen fixation and solubilising phosphorus, and stimulate plant growth through the synthesis of growth promoting substances. Since they play several roles, a preferred scientific term for such beneficial bacteria is Plant-Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria (PGPR).
Biofertilizers like Rhizobium, Azotobacter, Azospirillum and Blue Green Algae (BGA) are in use.
Ø BENEFITS:
- Help in safeguarding the sustainability and the health of soil.
- reduce the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
- healthy plants of better quality can be grown.
- The microorganisms in biofertilizers restore the soil’s natural nutrient cycle and build soil organic matter.
- Biofertilizers do not contain any chemicals which are harmful to living things in the soil and hence are Eco-friendly.
- Increase crop yield by 20-30%.
- Replace chemical nitrogen and phosphorus by 25%.
- Stimulate plant growth.
- Activate the soil biologically.
- Restore natural soil fertility.
- Provide protection against drought and some soil borne diseases.
- Reduces the costs towards fertilizers use, especially regarding nitrogen and phosphorus and hence are cost effective.
BIO-IMPLANTATION
A bio-implant may be defined as a biomaterial surgically implanted in a person’s body to replace damaged tissue. Common areas of application include orthopaedic (especially maxillofacial) reconstructive prosthesis, cardiac prostheses (artificial heart valves like the TTK Chitra heart valve), skin and cornea.
BIOINFORMATICS
Ø INTRODUCTION & OBJECTIVE:
v The term bioinformatics was coined by Pauline Hogeweg in 1979 for the study of informatics processes in biotic systems.
v Bioinformatics is the field of science in which biology, computer science, and information technology merge to form a single discipline.
v The ultimate goal of the field is to enable the discovery of new biological insights as well as to create a global perspective from which unifying principles in biology can be discerned.
Ø CONCEPT:
At the beginning of the “genomic revolution”, a bioinformatics concern was the creation and maintenance of a database to store biological information, such as nucleotide and amino acid sequences. Development of this type of database involved not only design issues but the development of complex interfaces whereby researchers could both access existing data as well as submit new or revised data.
Ultimately, however, all of this information must be combined to form a comprehensive picture of normal cellular activities so that researchers may study how these activities are altered in different disease states. The actual process of analyzing and interpreting data is referred to as computational biology. Important sub-disciplines within bioinformatics and computational biology include:
v the development and implementation of tools that enable efficient access to, and use and management of, various types of information.
v the development of new algorithms (mathematical formulas) and statistics with which to assess relationships among members of large data sets, such as methods to locate a gene within a sequence, predict protein structure and/or function, and cluster protein sequences into families of related sequences.
Ø BIOINFORMATICS AS A BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE:
It is debatable whether bioinformatics and the discipline computational biology, literally “biology that involves computation,” are the same or distinct. To some, both bioinformatics and computational biology are defined as any use of computers for processing any biologically-derived information, whether DNA sequences or breast X-rays. Therefore, there are other fields, e.g. medical imaging / image analysis, which might be considered part of bioinformatics. This would be the broadest definition of the term. But, in practice, the definition used by most people is even narrower; bioinformatics to them is a synonym for computational molecular biology: any use of computers to characterize the molecular components of living things.
Ø BIOINFORMATICS AS A COMPUTER SCIENCE:
To others, bioinformatics is a grammatical contraction of “biological informatics” and is therefore related to the computer science disciplines of information science and/or information technology. This definition would thus emphasize the information contained within the biological data, also implying that large amounts of data would be managed and/or analyzed. Java, XML, Perl, C, C++, Python, R, SQL and MatLab are the programming languages popularly used in this field. A bioinformatician needs to have a basic and general sense of the ideas and approaches of science and engineering.
Ø CONCERNS:
However, the advent of biologic therapeutics has also raised complex regulatory issues and significant pharmacoeconomic concerns.
- PHARMACOECONOMIC CONCERNS: The cost for biologic therapies has been dramatically higher than for conventional (pharmacological) medications. Also, older patients who receive biologic therapy for diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis are at increased risk for life-threatening infection, adverse cardiovascular events, and malignancy. However, because other therapies are often ineffective, biologic therapy should be considered for some of these patients.
- REGULATORY ISSUES: In some jurisdictions, biologics are regulated in a different manner than are drugs and medical devices. Concerns exist that generic versions of biologics might perform differently than the original branded version of the drug. Unlike the more common small- molecule drugs (ie., conventional drugs), biologics generally exhibit high molecular complexity, and may be quite sensitive to manufacturing process changes. Only the original manufacturer of the drug has access to the original molecule or process. A follow-on manufacturer does not have access to the same. Because of this, the follow-on manufacturer’s biologic may contain undetectable differences in impurities and/or breakdown products, which can lead to serious health implications.
So, unlike most drugs, generic versions of biologics are not authorized in the United States or the European Union through the simplified procedures allowed for conventional generic drugs. Notable exceptions include several of the earliest biopharmaceuticals made via recombinant DNA technology, including biosynthetic ‘human’ insulin and human growth hormone.
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