Science & Technology Quiz: Biotechnology in Agriculture and Health

The cry genes of Bt cotton come from Bacillus thuringiensis, a soil bacterium that forms crystal protein during sporulation; the protein is inactive as eaten but becomes a toxin in the alkaline gut of the bollworm, which is why the plant resists the pest.

Approved in 2002, it is the only genetically modified crop cleared for commercial cultivation by Indian farmers, and it is grown for fibre rather than as food.

He devised the polymerase chain reaction, which copies a selected stretch of DNA millions of times through repeated cycles of heating and cooling, using the heat resistant Taq polymerase, and he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for it.

Golden rice was engineered to make beta carotene, the precursor from which the body forms vitamin A, in the edible part of the grain, and the pigment gives the rice its golden colour; the aim was to reduce night blindness among populations living mainly on rice.

Working under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, it is the apex committee under the rules of 1989 framed under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, and no genetically engineered organism may be released into the environment or used on a large scale without its clearance.

Plant breeding is the deliberate improvement of crops by choosing parents with desirable characters, crossing them, selecting among the progeny and multiplying the best lines; the high yielding wheat and rice varieties of the Green Revolution came from it, and modern breeding is often combined with tissue culture and marker…

A single plant cell retains the capacity to divide and differentiate into every tissue and so to regenerate a whole plant, which is why an explant grown on a sterile nutrient medium can form callus and then complete plantlets.

Rhizobium lives in symbiosis in the root nodules of pulses and fixes atmospheric nitrogen into a form the plant can use, which enriches the soil and reduces the need for nitrogen fertiliser.

The two polypeptide chains of the hormone are made in genetically engineered bacteria and then joined by disulphide bonds, giving insulin identical to the human hormone, which ended the dependence on insulin extracted from the pancreas of cattle and pigs and the allergy that sometimes followed.

The Department of Biotechnology was created in 1986 under the Ministry of Science and Technology to give the subject a separate home, and it supports institutions, fellowships and national facilities; the Review Committee on Genetic Manipulation also works under it.