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The founding father of biotechnology: Károly (Karl) Ereky
Abstract
Nowdays it is generally expressed opinion of the leading scientific circles that the purposefully planned biotechnological actions of the 21st century will be indispensable of realizing the sustainable technical development in the supplementation of the increasing population, especially those who suffer privation, thus the long-distance interests of mankind will be met without impairing the world's ecological integrity. In 1989 Robert Bud gave account of the fact that the father of the term "biotechnology" was the Hungarian agricultural engineer, Karl Ereky. Recently, we have explored and found some important biographical sources and scientific documents which had been published by Károly (Karl) Ereky, the which, however, have already been forgotten. This article expands on that more contextual treatment to explore the man and his doctrine. It draws upon Hungarian and private sources as well as on German publications.
... ("Convention on Biological Diversity -1992Diversity - ", 1992. It was first described in 1919 by agronomist Károly (Karl) Ereky (FÁRI; KRALOVÁNSZKY, 2006), and encompasses several disciplines such as medicine, chemistry, engineering, pharmacy, agronomy, and many others, thus becoming a multi/interprofessional area. The development of new tools and products can bring positive outcomes in the treatment of diseases, improving the population's quality of life. ...
O uso da biotecnologia no desenvolvimento de novos produtos pode trazer resultados positivos no tratamento de doenças, melhorando a qualidade de vida da população. Vendo esse cenário é possível relembrar os Objetivos de Desenvolvimento Sustentável da ONU. Pensando em formas de fortalecer e engajar novos produtos biotecnológicos e startups no mercado médico, esta pesquisa tem como objetivo estabelecer as percepções e o uso prático das inovações biotecnológicas. Em seguida, realizamos um estudo inicial exploratório qualitativo que visa construir hipóteses sobre o que está limitando o desenvolvimento da interface entre a biotecnologia e o campo médico, a partir de percepções sobre a biotecnologia e sua aplicação prática na perspectiva médica. Foi realizada uma entrevista semiestruturada em uma amostra foi intencional não probabilística, totalizando um N=6. As respostas foram registradas e analisadas pela plataforma Atlas.ti. Destacaram pontos do cotidiano atual como o desconhecimento do mercado biotecnológico nacional, enfatizando a produção internacional, bem como seu alto custo de produção e aquisição como se a inclusão dessas novas tecnologias estivesse longe da prática clínica.
... Ereky envisaged the use of biology to convert raw materials into useful products, resulting in a new industrial revolution. His vision, which would soon be applied to microorganisms more than it would be macroorganisms, became popular with agrobiologists, chemists, and engineers [180,281,282]. As a well-known example, we also have Fleming's discovery, which led to penicillin, the first successful chemotherapeutic agent to be produced by a microbe. ...
Universal history is characterized by continuous evolution, in which civilizations are born and die. This evolution is associated with multiple factors, among which the role of microorganisms is often overlooked. Viruses and bacteria have written or decisively contributed to terrible episodes of history, such as the Black Death in 14th century Europe, the annihilation of pre-Columbian American civilizations, and pandemics such as the 1918 Spanish flu or the current COVID-19 pandemic caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. Nevertheless, it is clear that we could not live in a world without these tiny beings. Endogenous retroviruses have been key to our evolution and for the regulation of gene expression, and the gut microbiota helps us digest compounds that we could not otherwise process. In addition, we have used microorganisms to preserve or prepare food for millennia and more recently to obtain drugs such as antibiotics or to develop recombinant DNA technologies. Due to the enormous importance of microorganisms for our survival, they have significantly influenced the population genetics of different human groups. This paper will review the role of microorganisms as “villains” who have been responsible for tremendous mortality throughout history but also as “friends” who help us survive and evolve.
It is necessary to develop and deploy novel protein production to allow the establishment of a sustainable supply for both humans and animals, given the ongoing expansion of protein demand to meet the future needs of the increased world population and high living standards. In addition to plant seeds, green biomass from dedicated crops or green agricultural waste is also available as an alternative source to fulfill the protein and nutrient needs of humans and animals. The development of extraction and precipitation methods (such as microwave coagulation) for chloroplast and cytoplasmic proteins, which constitute the bulk of leaf protein, will allow the production of leaf protein concentrates (LPC) and protein isolates (LPI). Obtained LPC serves as a sustainable alternative source of animal-based protein besides being an important source of many vital phytochemicals, including vitamins and substances with nutritional and pharmacological effects. Along with it, the production of LPC, directly or indirectly, supports sustainability and circular economy concepts. However, the quantity and quality of LPC largely depend on several factors, including plant species, extraction and precipitation techniques, harvest time, and growing season. This paper provides an overview of the history of green biomass-derived protein from the early green fodder mill concept by Károly Ereky to the state-of-art of green-based protein utilization. It highlights potential approaches for enhancing LPC production, including dedicated plant species, associated extraction methods, selection of optimal technologies, and best combination approaches for improving leaf protein isolation.
A healthcare scheme has been the most important priority for all governments globally. Biotechnologists utilize living organisms or their body parts to develop a new product and products have affected the preferment of healthcare over the last 30 years. Biotechnology in India has made great progress in the development of infrastructure, manpower, research and development and manufacturing of biological reagents, biodiagnostics, biotherapeutics, therapeutic and, prophylactic vaccines and biodevices. Healthcare biotechnology has had both a profound significance in saving, extending, and improving human lives, as well as significant commercial returns for the scientists and entrepreneurs involved. Broadly speaking, healthcare biotechnology is about diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of disease. Indian Government has already framed its policy under the aegis of the Department of Biotechnology by aggregating the state biotechnology policies. This chapter discusses the government policies, initiatives in India that drive its research, development and commercialization in the area of healthcare biotechnology.
This review aims to clarify a suitable method towards achieving next-generation sustainability. As represented by the term 'Anthropocene', the Earth, including humans, is entering a critical era; therefore, science has a great responsibility to solve it. Biomimetics, the emulation of the models, systems and elements of nature, especially biological science, is a powerful tool to approach sustainability problems. Microscopy has made great progress with the technology of observing biological and artificial materials and its techniques have been continuously improved, most recently through the NanoSuit® method. As one of the most important tools across many facets of research and development, microscopy has produced a large amount of accumulated digital data. However, it is difficult to extract useful data for making things as biomimetic ideas despite a large amount of biological data. Here, we would like to find a way to organically connect the indispensable microscopic data with the new biomimetics to solve complex human problems.
Translational healthcare (TH) can be defined as a form of precision medicine used as a prevention and treatment approach for an individual by taking into consideration the subject’s associated variability factors along with standard clinical care. It roughly translates into the process of transforming a huge amount of data into healthcare using advanced computational tools. The TH spectrum stretches at one end where informatics tools link biological units to their clinical output, i.e., from bench to bedside, while at the other end it is to gain knowledge from information translated from the input of biomedical informatics. It is an integrated, comprehensive approach toward diagnostic and therapeutic study that broadly includes clinical big data analysis for genomic discovery and pharmacogenomics to provide routine healthcare, using the collected data through omics approach to design specific drugs and personalized genome testing of the individual through next-generation sequencing analysis to provide customized treatment. The TH attempts to provide individual solutions to singular patient based on combining their genomic, environmental, and clinical profiles that allow us to use this holistic approach in patient care. Academic centers, pharmaceutical companies, biotech companies, and health centers all around the world are developing and implementing various discovery projects whose main objective is to allow workers access a common, homogenous, and detailed data of de identified specimens. This initiative is serving as a repository for augmenting translational research which would lead us to finding firm clinical solutions. This chapter discusses the perspectives of various elements which are involved in translational computational tools that drive us toward realizing precision medicine as an actuality.
In biotechnology and bioengineering, small molecules can be used to increase the efficiency reduce the cost and damage to the environment of certain bioprocesses. This book introduces readers to the important field of chemically promoted biotechnology and bioengineering and presents the theory behind the biotechnology of enzymatic reactions and how they can be chemically enhanced. The book covers chemical modulators for enzymatic reactions, chemically promoted biotechnology in plant cell cultures, chemically promoted biotechnology for plant protection and future prospects for the field. Knowledge gained allows both chemists to make use of biotechnology to solve chemical problems in an environmentally-friendly way, and biologists to make use of chemistry to increase biotechnological efficiency. This book is useful for scientists in a broad range of disciplines, including agricultural chemistry, pesticide science, medicinal chemistry, biochemistry, bio-organic chemistry, cell and molecular biology. Students and researchers in both academia and industry will find it a useful handbook.
The biotechnology in Latin America has had a substantial increase in scientific productions occupying 4.96% of the world production, being Brazil and México the countries that generate the highest production. Since 2004, the Latin American Congress of Algal Biotechnology (CLABA) has been held, bringing together different specialized branches in both micro and macro algae. The aim of this work is to get an approximation on the trends in algal biotechnology in Latin America using as data the researches presented in the VI CLABA carried out in October 2017 in Lima (Peru). The information was organized in a matrix where the species used were identified; likewise, it was classified according to the phylum and the groups of eukaryotes/bacteria. In the same way, the investigations were classified according to their application. Chlorophyta (47%), Cyanobacteria (16%) and Ochrophyta (13%) were among the most relevant groups in terms of phylum; on the other hand, the most outstanding group of eukaryote/bacteria were Archaeplastida (57%), Stramenopiles (24%) and Cyanobacteria (17%). It is interesting that, in spite of being a congress of algae, 16% of organisms used were cyanobacteria, probably due to the taxonomic tradition in this group of polyphyletic organisms. The most used applications in this congress are oriented to aquaculture and care of the environment.
In the traditional instructional paradigm, faculty members act like actors on a stage. They memorize their speech and deliver it to the audience, many times with very little to no interaction at all with the audience. On the other hand, in the student-centered learning paradigm, faculty members act like coaches interacting full time with their team. This chapter is based on a study conducted at a Brazilian Federal University. The study depicts the distance between science production and teaching, and reports on experiences using smart phone clickers to track and analyze students' content acquisition. The objective is to improve the interactive quality of teaching and learning, thus promoting steps to shift towards a student-centered instructional paradigm. Although smartphones were used in this study, with wearable technologies continuing to grow, other wearables such as smart glasses and smart watches could be used instead.
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