Monday, August 26, 2013

Biotechnology Services & How They Work

Biotechnology Services & How They Work

By Armand Zeiders


Each and every one of us wants to live in a world where diseases can be treated easily or even cured, allowing us to enjoy life to the fullest. The biotechnology industry is hard at work trying to make this dream a reality. Advancements in technology continue to improve our understanding of diseases and how they develop. To aid in these studies, many private and public research laboratories outsource specific, complicated tasks to biotechnology companies. Here are just a few examples of the services that a lab might need.

One common service is the creation of a specific antibody known as a monoclonal antibody. This service has proved to be very useful because these antibodies can be used in the creation of drugs to fight many diseases. Of course, your body does produce antibodies naturally to fight germs, viruses and other foreign invaders, but artificially created monoclonal antibodies can force the body to fight a specific problem. By modifying these antibodies to specifically only target a certain antigen, such as one that is found on cancer cell, you can protect other healthy cells in the process. Creating a monoclonal antibody obviously is a complicated process, which is why this is a popular service provided by various biotech corporations.

In the past few decades, scientists have discovered that many diseases may be caused by problems with the protein in our cells. As a result of protein issues, neurodegenerative disorders may occur. Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and Huntington's disease are some of the disorders and diseases that are caused by protein-related problems that eventually cause the death of neurons. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, is another type of degenerative disorder caused by problematic proteins.

Biotech companies are now providing services such as custom peptide synthesis to aid in studies of proteins. The production of peptides, which are chains of amino acids that will eventually form proteins, is called peptide synthesis. Peptide synthesis occurs naturally in the body, but also can be created in a laboratory.

To counter or prevent these diseases and disorders from happening, scientists and researchers are studying protein expression and also protein sequencing. Technology and innovation has greatly lessened the burden of such tasks. Now there are a lot of helpful services that provide custom protein expression and protein sequencing. With their help, researchers can measure the amount of a specific protein in our cells or tissues and they can synthesize, modify this as they see them fit.

In protein sequencing, we find out exactly how the amino acids come together or link to form a protein. Once we know all we can about a sequence of a protein, we can try to develop drugs that will modify the protein in such as way that alters the course of a disease or other problems. Potentially curing diseases and improving human health is what the biotechnology industry is all about and why the industry is booming. Hopefully there are more discoveries and inventions in the field or biotechnology in the future.




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