Exploring Biotechnology for Kids

Welcome to our "Science Fun for Children" series! Today, we visit a laboratory.

Meet the Experts

Let me introduce Dr. Desmond O'Hanlon, an expert biotechnologist from Trinity College.

Dr. O'Hanlon: Hi, and I would also like you to meet Greta Byrne, who is my assistant.

Greta: Hello everyone.

The Dialogue

Reporter: Doctor, first a simple question: What is biotechnology?

Dr. O'Hanlon: This comes from three Greek words: "bio," which means life; "tecno," which means tool; and "ologia," which is the study of. So, biotechnology is the tool for the study of life.

Reporter: As we are not experts, I think what you're telling us is a good idea because biotechnology is of interest to us. How does it affect people?

Dr. O'Hanlon: Well, biotechnology has been around for more than four thousand years! Have you ever eaten a toasted cheese sandwich?

Reporter: That's a strange question! Of course, yes!

Dr. O'Hanlon: Well, the bread and cheese were created using biotechnology over thousands of years. To make bread, it's essential that we add a living organism: yeast. To make the bread rise, the yeast eats the sugar in the bread ingredients and expels carbon dioxide, a gas. The gas in the bread mixture causes the bread to rise. The cheese in your sandwich is made by adding another living organism, a lactic acid bacterium, to keep the milk from spoiling.

Greta: Another good example is apples. Even though people have eaten apples for thousands of years, they were the size of a wrinkled crabapple and very sour before biotechnology.

Dr. O'Hanlon: There are many more examples.

Reporter: Fascinating! What else can you do with biotechnology?

Dr. O'Hanlon: We use biotechnology in medicine to try to cure cancer or eradicate the hantavirus. We use it to increase energy generation or to get a new source of energy, such as biofuels from plants. It is used in agriculture to increase crops such as rice and corn. In fact, in our times, when water shortage is a problem for the future, it is imperative that we cultivate drought-resistant plants, and biotechnology can help achieve this.

Greta: And it's also used in some mining processes to extract metals from ores.

Reporter: Isn't it dangerous to work with viruses and bacteria?

Dr. O'Hanlon: It could be if we were not careful. This is why it is imperative that scientists are careful when experimenting in their safe laboratory environments.