生物技术在药物研究和开发中的应用

生物技术应用于药物研究和开发领域可以大量获得生物活性物质、半合成药物等;分子生物学的发展使基因药物、基因治疗、细胞因子药物成为临床药物及治疗方法;生物技术还将大大促进海洋药物研究与开发。     

海洋生物技术与资源的可持续性利用

海洋是地球上最大的生物资源库,它不仅提供人类优质蛋白质,还蕴藏有结构新颖、性能独特的生物活性物质。由于海洋环境的严酷性和条件的特殊性,开发海洋资源难度较大,只有利用现代生物技术,特别是关键的基因工程技术,才有可能持续地发展和利用海洋生物资源,从而为解决21世纪人类资源匮乏的问题开创新路。本文以长期困扰对虾养殖业的对虾白班杆状病毒为例,阐述了该病毒基因组研究的进展情况以及开展该病毒功能基因组研究的重要性。病毒的分子生物学研究将为防治养殖病害奠定基础。本文还强调了深海基因资源是一个有待开发的潜在宝库,是国际竞争的焦点之一,开展深海基因资源的研究在我国已刻不容缓。     

我国生物技术产业先导性综合评价

文章以生物技术产业为研究对象,建立了生物技术产业的先导性评价指标体系.该指标体系立足于从宏观、中观、微观多层面、多视角透视生物技术产业的先导性,选择模糊Bodar要素法建立综合评价模型.通过数据的收集、整理并计算,得出的生物技术产业先导性评价结果基本上反映出生物技术产业的总体发展特点,即生物技术产业在国民经济发展中确实有较强的先导性.同时这一评价结果也为把生物技术产业作为我国实现现代化过程的先导产业和未来的支柱产业提供了科学的依据.     

茶叶生物技术的研究现状与展望

提出了茶叶生物技术的基本概念,综述酶工程、细胞工程、基因工程及发酵工程四大生物工程技术在茶学领域的应用现状,并据此提出了今后进一步开展这方面研究的方向。     

基于人眼光学模型的角膜模型的研究

位于眼球最前端的角膜是人眼光学系统的主要屈光元件之一,建立角膜模型具有重要的研究和临床意义。基于角膜面型的非球面特性,应用光学设计软件Zemax,从光学成像角度,提出了结合人眼光学模型的角膜双二次曲面模型的建立,并结合国人正视眼和近视眼的有关实测数据和分析结果,以人眼的波像差为评价函数,通过对初始模型眼的优化,给出了符合我国人眼特点的正视眼和近视眼模型中的角膜模型,讨论了矫正近视的矫正眼模型中的角膜理想模型和可用于角膜屈光手术中的切削模型。基于人眼光学模型的角膜双二次曲面模型也可为波像差引导的个性化角膜切削方案提供一个更适于实际应用的数字化模型。     

Broadening the lens for the governance of emerging technologies: Care ethics and agricultural biotechnology

In this paper we argue that insights from feminist perspectives, particularly in the form of an ethics of care, have a number of advantages when used as a lens through which to consider questions relevant to the governance of emerging technologies. We highlight how an emphasis on central themes of importance in feminist theory and care ethics such as relationality, contextuality, dependence, power, affect, and narrative can shine a light on a number of salient issues that are typically missed by the dominant and largely consequentialist risk assessment frame. We argue that the care ethics lens is a better fit when technologies are understood not simply as devices designed to create a certain end experience for a user but as transformative systems that smuggle in numerous social and political interests. The advantages of these care ethics themes for emerging technologies are illustrated through a detailed consideration of agricultural biotechnology. We show how the feminist care ethics lens might have anticipated the very questions that have proved themselves to be the sticking points for this technology. We therefore suggest that applying a care ethics lens can significantly broaden the frame of appraisal processes used for the governance of emerging technologies and usefully grant legitimacy to questions and concerns that are prominent in public discourse but typically left out of practices of risk assessment.     

New Directions in Bioinformatics

Two decades have passed since the first large scale, public access computer-based information systems were developed to store and disseminate the knowledge of medicine and biology. These first systems were bibliographic, and though the searching of computer files of citations remains the most common use of biological databases, there are dramatic forces at work in basic biology which are driving a transition from the printed page to the factual database. Unlike bibliographic systems, which contain only a pointer to information located elsewhere, factual data-bases contain the information sought. Development of automated methods to sequence DNA, RNA, proteins, and other macromolecules have yielded oceans of cryptic symbols, for which there is an absolute dependence upon computerized factual databases to acquire, store, retrieve, and analyze data. The Human Genome Project has focussed attention on the information science aspects of nucleic acid data, yet for the practicing scientist nucleic acids and other sequence data are just one piece of an increasingly complex biological puzzle whose solution will be expressed in terms of structure and function. Access to and integration of information across multiple related biological data-bases is a major challenge facing information system builders, a challenge which holds the promise of creating knowledge synergy from what are today disconnected, stand-alone information sources.     

Accelerated ripening of cheese using liposome-encapsulated enzyme

Improved efficiency of liposome encapsulation of a cheese-ripening enzyme and increased retention of encapsulated enzyme by cheese curd are reported. The economy of enzyme usage for accelerating the rate of ripening of Cheddar cheese has been improved about 100-fold over previously reported methods. This has made feasible the use of microencapsulated enzymes for large-scale cheese production. Objective measurement of cheese ripening by proteolytic indices, and subjective evaluation of flavour quality and intensity by trained taste panels, indicate that cheeses are ripened by the microencapsulated enzyme in half the normal time. Investigations aimed at further improving the efficiency and commercial feasibility of the process are reported, and the possibility of using this technology for other aspects of food processing are discussed.     

Plant biotechnology and food crop development in Sub-Saharan Africa

Biotechnology represents the newest challenge in the ongoing scientific progress in this millennium. Indeed what were seen as promising technologies a few years ago have already produced results; new crop varieties, animal species and agricultural processes. In crop improvement, for example, biotechnology has produced a wide range of applications including micro-propagation of crop varieties for commercial purposes, somatic embryogenesis, inter-specific crosses, gene transfers, and disease control and haploid production. Although modest in comparison with the prospects originally envisaged, mankind cannot but acknowledge these achievements, the regulatory control and commercial exploitation of biotechnology on standards of living of the human society.     

食品化工生物技术的现状与展望

介绍了酶制剂、生物反应器、生物传感器及固定化酶、固定化细胞等生物技术在食品化工中的研究现状和应用以及在食品工业废水处理中的应用进展。