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DEVELOPMENT OF MARINE BIOTECHNOLOGY,

BIOPROSPECTING, PHARMACEUTICALS
AND DERIVATIVES

Ricardo Coutinho
Lohengrin Dias de Almeida Fernandes
Giselle Pinto de Faria Lopes

1. Introdução

The term Biotechnology is derived from 3 One of the turning points between
Greek words: bios (βίος), which means life; Classical Biotechnology and Modern Bio-
technos (τεχνηος), representing technology; technology is the series of experiments
and logos (λόγος), which denotes thought. carried out by H. Boyer and S. Cohen that
In 1919, a Hungarian agricultural engineer, culminated in 1973 with the transfer of a
Ereky, gave the first definition of Biotech- gene from a frog to a bacterium. From that
nology as “the science and methods that moment on, it became possible to change
make it possible to obtain products from the genetic program of an organism, trans-
raw materials, through the intervention ferring genes from another species to it.
of living organisms”. Since then, the 20th Currently, Biotechnology encompasses

century has seen an extraordinary devel- a wide area of knowledge that combines
opment of science (genetics, microbiology) basic sciences (such as molecular biolo-
and technology (electronics, informatics). gy, biophysics, physiology, biochemistry,
The convergence between the two resulted genetics, and ecology) with applied sci-
in great advances in several productive sec- ences (e.g., pharmacodynamics, materials
tors, where living beings form the basis of nanotechnology, bioengineering, and im-
items as diverse as the production of more munohistochemistry) through the use of
productive plant varieties, the manufacture techniques derived from physics (microelec-
of new foods, the treatment of waste, the tronics), chemistry (fermentations, separa-
production of enzymes and the antibiotics. tions, purifications) and other technologies

Development of Marine Biotechnology 481
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