Week7

This week, the class looked into the other aspects of Biotechonology - Agribiology, Environmental Life Sciences and Industrial Biotechnology.

Takeaways:

1. Genetic engineering realises the tremendous increase of crop supply and the advancement of nutritional quality.
2. The wonderful techniques have brought benefits to those who can afford.
3. Concerns on food security issues are raised and questioned.

The Promise of Agribiology

Genetic modification technique can speed up the process of harvesting and increase the supply of crops produced every year. It allows us to improve the nutritional quality of our food crop species. This seems to be a solution to world hunger in the Third World countries. Recombinant DNA techniques also enable the transgenic crops to have higher tolerance to some serious insect pets and ameliorate the soil degradation issues. The reduction of herbicide usage has greatly lower the costs of production while alleviating soil degradation problems raised by excessive chemical usage.

The Applications of Agribiology

Is agribology really the key to eradication of world hunger? For now, I guess the answer is NO! 

Those resource-poor farmers are unable to gain access to the product of biotechnology as most genetic modification research is done by private enterprise, which patents its inventions. It is understandable that intellectual property rights have to be issued to the contributors in consideration of their research effort and the high research and implementation costs incurred. However, public sectors should also step in, take into account of the reasonable duration of patent rights and legislate policies that not only protects the private sectors, but also benefits the people and the less fortunate ones. Only when intellectual property rights and regulations are more mature, then will the elimination of world hunger come into the picture.

Besides the genetic engineering and the governmental organisations playing a role in surviving those people from starvation, people from the developed countries such as America should be constantly reminded of their over-consumption of food. As the supply of food production increases, the demand for food increases excessively in the rich countries. Plus the patent rights and the affordability for genetic modified food, we should say that the supply of crops IN THE DEVELOPED COUNTRIES increases to meet the rising demand. People take the sufficient amount of food for granted. Food wastage is common seen. Eventually, the problem on world hunger is barely touched on.

Food Security of GM Food

The potential risks of consuming genetic modified food are still under question. How safe is the artificial food? Do its benefits outweigh the risks the society has to take? There are a lots of uncertainties to which agricultural scientists could not give a finite answer. 

I am not the expert here and I do not know much about the complexities of modified genes. However, from the consumer point of view, I believe there is no risk-free thing in the world. Without the presence of GM food, we may now worry about the chemicals used for agriculture and how those chemicals may potentially threaten our lives. There is also going to be something we will raised our doubts about. Either it is the non-organic food or the non-organic food or perhaps other stuffs we have yet to uncover. Researchers are here to provide more choices for us. What we should do is to choose what we think is best for us instead of criticising researchers' new findings. Therefore, I am also on the side of food labelling. 

Another thought in mind: GM food may be to showcase Darwin's theory of evolution - "Survival of the fittest". Our body may evolve and adapt to the changing of food varieties as time goes by.

Session Rating: 9/10

Week6

The focus for this week was on the revolution of healthcare and biomedical sciences and the issues imposed along the process. Prof Shahi started off with the definition of Biobusiness – about life and businesses.

On this planet, the life form we are aware of uses the same architecture code. It is amazing how same building blocks could move in different directions. The various desire and needs of living things and diversity comes from responding to them.

Main Takeaways:

• Biotechnology generates revenue at a proportion at a slow pace. Currently, biobusiness sectors such as Agriculture and Healthcare are still more valuable and take up a larger percentage of GDP either regionally or globally.
• The imbalance utilisation of healthcare services and facilities. 
• Although there is a major improvement in the healthcare sector, people's health condition has no progress due to the hectic working culture. As the occurrence of chronic diseases reduces, the problems of communicable and nutritional conditions arise. 
• Not everyone can have access to the advanced medical equipment and techniques. 5% of the world is consuming 50% of the availability of healthcare.
• BioInnovation is a driver of Biobusinesss value creation. The presence of patent rights help secure the originality of biotechnology, in the meantime, allows monopolization to happen. This results in the higher pricing of new medicines and equipment which only the rich can afford to enjoy the advantages from the state-of-the-art healthcare provisions.

My voice on patent rights:

• The acquisition of patent rights is a long process. It takes years before an application to be approved. Many may be disqualified along the process of applying. Apparently, this involves challenge against time. Unlike the large pharmaceutical companies, small enterprises could not afford such a long waiting duration without any active cash flow. Eventually, this will results in a monopolised stage.
• In fact, patent right creates a lopsided ownership and unequally distributed benefits.Large pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline and Eli Lilly take patent right as an advantage. I recalled there was once a dispute between international pharmaceutical corporations and the Brazilian Indigenous people over the creation of medicine. After all, large companies extracted the Brazilian Indigenous people's contributions and knowledge to the world's medicine to manufacture drug products of their own and seek for patent approval. The companies are earning hulk amount of money while the indigence gain nothing. 

Session Rating: 9/10. Interesting and familiar topic. 

 

Week5

This week, we focused on Information Communication Technology (ICT) and world change. We contemplated on the past, present and future of ICT and the possible risks and dangers it could impose.

In class, we covered various areas of areas of ICT –mass media, internet, wireless technologies, cloud computing etc. To me, many of these are so near, yet so far. So near is because we are mainly revolved around mass media and internet. However, to many of us, we are far from the construction and build-up of ICT. We can deploy such technologies despite the abstraction and complications behind-the-scene. We can get in touch with people everywhere in seconds. We can convey and retrieve data in real time context. We can be instantly well-informed as long as we are in an open society. As artificial intelligence gets more advanced, ICT seems to simplify our world with a complex methodology eventually.

The introduction of ICT is the turning point of which people are more connected to the world’s happenings and the economy functions in an unrelenting pace. People’s working efficiency is up by many levels with the accessibility of various information and knowledge. The interaction between static information and dynamic brains is more responsive. We do not just stare at the data on paper or from books with no means to express our own opinions to many strangers.  In fact, people nowadays actively receive information from others, digest it and produce their approach of viewing things back to the others. 

 ICT never fails to provide information. But to think broader, how much truth is there in the information provided and how much simple is our life now?

 Indeed, we have gone through a period when people are indulged in the convenience that ICT has brought to us. There were moments of satisfactory before the abuse of such advancement. Nonetheless, issues and concerns are raised along the familiarity of ICT. Increased exposure of information can be a double-edged sword. Funny to say, we thought that our life was tough as many things had to be done manually and we were manipulated as information were highly censored and tailored with the politic power. Now, we think we are lucky but we are just living in a bigger pool of lies. When information is over flooded and others can contribute their personal or prejudiced opinions anytime anywhere, we ought to be a filter machine – distinguishing the truths from the lies. There can be many other concerns such as espionage and identity theft. The word “hacker” also is not something new due to the emergence of internet and wireless technologies. While internet provides entertainment and convenience to us, we have to be aware of security issues especially during activities when privacy is highly involved.

We once thought we would be more humane in the era of information technology. In fact, we are turning less human.

Session Rating: 9/10. No rush in presentation. More informative.