Biotechnology uses living cells to develop or manipulate products for specific purposes, such as genetically modified foods. Biotechnology is thus linked to genetic engineering and emerged as a field in its own right at the beginning of the 20th century in the food industry, which was later joined by other sectors such as medicine and the environment.
Today, the five branches into which modern biotechnology is divided — human, environmental, industrial, animal and plant — help us fight hunger and disease, produce more safely, cleanly and efficiently, reduce our ecological footprint and save energy. It provides huge investment potential for us in this sector.