what exactly is biotechnology?

International Students
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<p>1.a lot of people are telling me to consider going for biotech as a career, but i really don’t know what exactly it is!</p>

<p>2.i want to go into some field that will enable me to find cures for diseases, research diseases etc. so apart from microbiology is there any other field you can suggest for this?</p>

<p>as for my interests, i plan to take science in classes 11 and 12 (with biology) and bio and chem are my favourites, can’t stand physics for some reason (but am living with it pretty well!).</p>

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<p><<the un=“” convention=“” on=“” biological=“” diversity=“” has=“” come=“” up=“” with=“” one=“” of=“” many=“” definitions=“” biotechnology:=“” “biotechnology=”" means=“” any=“” technological=“” application=“” that=“” uses=“” systems,=“” living=“” organisms,=“” or=“” derivatives=“” thereof,=“” to=“” make=“” modify=“” products=“” processes=“” for=“” specific=“” use.“=”" (…)=“” red=“” biotechnology=“” is=“” applied=“” medical=“” processes.=“” some=“” examples=“” are=“” the=“” designing=“” organisms=“” produce=“” antibiotics,=“” and=“” engineering=“” genetic=“” cures=“” through=“” genomic=“” manipulation.=“”>></the></p>

<p>That’s from Wikipedia. There are really a lot of fields that could enable you to research diseases; biotechnology is one of them. You could consider pathology, biomedical sciences, biochemistry, genetics, molecular biology, molecular medicine (in British universities), medical microbiology and bacteriology, pharmacology…</p>

3

<p>Microbiology wouldn’t actually be the best field for truly groundbreaking disease research; in my experience, it’s a tad limited and dated, especially since most current cutting-edge research deals with cancer, AIDS, or aging (none of which would really fit with microbiology). Biotech would be a good choice, or molecular biology/genetics – a lot of high-level research these days is at the molecular/chemical level, and looking into genetic diseases would be quite intriguing as well. (At least, it strikes me that way.)</p>

<p>Stay with science, obviously – if you love biology and chemistry, that’s a good start, although you’ll probably need a bit of physics to get by!</p>

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<p>Noldo - Don’t worry, I can hold on with a bit of physics! It’s just that it seems rather bland to me compared to biology and chemistry!</p>

<p>Yeah, I’m actually on the same train of thought as you. Aren’t all the degrees you mentioned kind of inter-related? Also, I really am not too keen on microbiology…I just brought that up to see how far I stood (not that I make much sense).</p>

<p>So could you suggest some good places to study biotech/closely related field in a place apart from the US or India?</p>