What is biotech any way?

Maybe this question sounds strange to you, but before we can dive into the biotech science and practice, you have to understand what do I mean when I say "biotech".
Bio-technology, is a general term, referring to any kind of technology that uses living organisms or materials from living organisms.

The Wiktionary define biotechnology as:

"1. the use of living organisms (especially microorganisms) in industrial, agricultural, medical and other technological applications 2. the application of the principles and practices of engineering and technology to the life science"

I disagree with that. This definition is not enough. A huge amount of technologies uses bio materials, but does not considered as biotech - for example - riding on horses uses living organisms (horses), but is not considered biotech, so does egg produced by chickens.

So in order to call some technology "biotech" it must hold another quality. For my opinion this quality is science.
What distinguish regular technology that exploit biological processes, and biotechnology? - the understanding. In biotech, we use our advanced understanding of biology to create the technology. Usually this mean understanding the chemical processes behind the biological world.

In more details, bio-tech is usually referring to the following technologies:

1. Medical technology - when we use biological understanding to invent new medical procedures, drags, treatments or devices, it might be called "biotechnology".
2. Agricultural technology - Using our knowledge of plants and animals biology to create more advanced crops , live stocks and agricultural techniques.
3. Research techniques - some times we use bio-technology to invent new kind of research methods that creates new scientific data.
4. Chemical industry - Many useful materials can be produced by using biological principles and reactions. When using advanced biological methods to produce new materials, it is also bio-tech.
5. Food industry - Since all of our foods are essentially biological, a lot of modern food production practices uses bio-tech.
6. Energy industry - In recent years, a lot of efforts are invested in the research of renewable energy resources, and one of the important ways to achieve that is bio-tech.

What is the basic knowledge required for understanding bio-tech?
Biotechnology is eventually about understanding how biological processes work from two main angles: One is the chemical side of the process and the other is the way information is used to shape the machinery of life. Biology is about super advanced information processing and super efficient chemical reactions.
So, in order to understand bio-tech we will talk about these two aspects of biology and how understanding them, can help us engineer new technologies.
This site does not assume any previous knowledge of these subject, and it will explain any piece if science when it will be needed.

To conclude, it is quite hard to define what bio-tech is. but I think I passed on the main idea. hopefully, you'll keep reading the material on this site, and will get to know the subject and it aspects deeply.

D.H.