The promise and potential of biotechnology rests, ultimately, on our understanding of biological processes at a molecular level. Such understanding allows manipulation and modulation of complex biochemical, metabolic and genetic processes in microorganisms, plants, animals and humans. The vast beneficial potential in manipulating biological processes and systems derives from the diversity of biological organisms and their inherent versatility and adaptability, as reflected in their validation of Darwinian paradigms concerning evolution and natural selection. Within living systems, the obviously chaotic nature of diversity based biological environments is transformed into complex and intricate physiological structures and biochemical pathways based on spatial and temporal organization of an organism's biochemical components. Utilizing structures and pathways, the myriad possible chemical consequences inherent in a collection of molecules in living systems reduces to organized metabolic processes. This ordered biochemical architecture in living systems is based almost entirely on molecular recognition and biospecificity. It is, therefore, through intervention of selective effectors, inhibitors, substrates, hormones and other pairs of transmitter and receptor molecules that living organisms maintain control over the course of chemical change within their systems. Examples of such control range from control of gene expression to self/non self discrimination via the immune system. Biotechnology, in essence, attempts to exploit the known factors affecting the flow of chemical information in biological systems for human use.
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