Category Archives: Biotechnology

Biotechnology Career Overview

If biology is your bag, you may be interested in biotech careers. Biological technicians often work at universities or in commercial labs assisting with experiments and tests. Biochemists, biophysicists and microbiologists are biotech jobs worked in universities or commercial or private offices and labs studying organisms, microorganisms, biological development and growth.

If you're looking at biotechnology careers, be prepared to get an education. Technicians and microbiologists need at least a bachelor's degree in biology, microbiology or a related field. Biochemists and biophysicists need a doctoral degree to find employment doing independent research and even development. Occasionally, you may find an entry-level biotech job that only requires a bachelor's or master's degree, but you'll want to go on to complete your Ph.D. if you aspire to move up the biotechnology ladder.

Overall, biotech careers are expected to increase in demand over the next 10 years. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects a 10 percent growth for biological techs, biochemists and biophysicists between 2012 and 2022, and a seven percent increase in microbiologists' jobs. Increased demand for research in the biotechnology field and the aging baby boomer population are the key issues that the BLS names for the positive job market outlook in these fields. That's good news for biochemists, biophysicists and microbiologists, as they held roughly only 49,300 jobs in 2012. The biotech techs, however, were almost double the other three biotech careers combined, expected to be around 88,300 by 2022, up from 80,200 jobs in 2012.

As with any job that requires a degree, biotech positions command higher salaries. Techs are the low men on the totem pole with an average annual salary of $38,750. If you put the time and effort into earning a master's degree or a Ph.D. for one of the other biotech jobs, however, the pay increases. Microbiologists earn an annual median wage of $66,260 and biochemists and biophysicists bring in even more with average annual pay at $81,480.

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The mission of the Seed Biotechnology Center (SBC)is to mobilize the research, educational and outreach resources of UC Davis in partnership with the seed and biotechnology industries to facilitate discovery and commercialization of new seed technologies for agricultural and consumer benefit.

A team of researchers including SBC Director of Research, Dr. Allen Van Deynze and Cristobal Heitmann, discover an indigenous variety of corn that can fix nitrogen from the atmosphere, instead of requiring synthetic fertilizers. Cristobal Heitman, Cris, was a beloved member of the UC Davis Plant Sciences Department. Criss energy and enthusiasm were a major catalyst in this research. Read more.

Plant Breeding Academy Addresses Global Food Needs

UC Davis' Department of Plant Sciences shares how PBA is changing the global food supply one scientist at a time.Read article.

A DryCardis the latest technology to improve the shelf-life of seeds. Dr. Kent Bradford, SBCDirector, describes how the amazingDryCard works. Read more.

Comstock Magazine highlighted the value of locating Sakatas Woodland Innovation Center in the Sacramento Valley. The regions fertile soil and ideal climate make it one of the best places in the world for seed production. In addition, its close proximity to UC Davis will allow Sakata to strengthen its already existing ties to the university. Learn more.

Scientists could engineer a spicy tomato. Is it worth it?

Scientists are working on growing a spicy tomato. Dr. Allen Van Deyneze, SBC Director of Research shares his insight on the research. Read article.

Benson Hill Teams Up with The African Orphan Crops Consortium to Combat Malnutrition Through Underutilized Crops

Allen Van Deynze, Director of Research, Seed Biotechnology Center, University of California, Davis and Scientific Director of the African Orphan Crops Consortium highlights effort to accelerate the ability of African scientists to develop better seeds and improve the diets of Africas children. Learn more

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Welcome to the SBC - Seed Biotechnology Center

BTEC110: Basic Techniques in Biotechnology

Units: 4Prerequisites: BIO105 and CHEM140 or one year of high school chemistry (within 4 years), or qualification through a chemistry placement exam.Advisory: ACE150, ENGL50, ESL150, or eligibility determined by the English placement process.Acceptable for Credit: CSULecture 2 hours, laboratory 6 hours. Course Typically Offered: Fall, Spring

This course focuses on the basic laboratory skills needed for employment in the bioscience/biotechnology industry. Students learn laboratory safety and documentation while acquiring skills in the maintenance and calibration of basic lab equipment, calculation and preparation of lab solutions and media, and routine handling of both bacterial and mammalian cell cultures (tissue culture). Students also develop fundamental skills in spectroscopy, centrifugation, performance of assays, gel electrophoresis, and the purification and handling of biological molecules, such as proteins and DNA. (Materials Fee: $30.00)

BTEC120: Business and Regulatory Practices in Biotechnology

Units: 3Prerequisites: NoneAcceptable for Credit: CSULecture 3 hours. Course Typically Offered: Fall, Spring

This course examines basic business principles and practices utilized in the discovery, development, and production phases of new product development. It explores the role of governmental oversight and regulation in assuring the safety, efficacy, and quality of a biotechnology product.

BTEC180: Biostatistics

Units: 4Prerequisites: MATH64, MATH102, or eligibility determined by the math placement process.Advisory: BIO105, BIO110, BIO111, BIO202, or BIO204.Enrollment Limitation: Not open to students with prior credit in BIO 180, BUS204, PSYC104, PSYC104H, SOC104, or SOC104H.Acceptable for Credit: CSU, UCLecture 3 hours, laboratory 3 hours. Course Typically Offered: Fall, Spring

This introductory statistics course covers the principles and practice of statistical design and analysis for scientific experimentation. Topics include hypothesis formation, experimental design and execution, data analysis, and communication with application to scientific fields, such as the biological and health sciences. The course includes laboratory application with extensive use of computer software for statistical analysis and simulation. UC CREDIT LIMITATION: Credit for BIO 180/BTEC180, BUS204, MATH103, PSYC104/SOC104, or PSYC104H/SOC104H.

BTEC201: Advanced Cell Culture

Units: 1Prerequisites: BTEC110.Acceptable for Credit: CSULecture 0.50 hour, laboratory 1.50 hours. Course Typically Offered: Spring

This advanced course teaches skills in the proper handling of cells from higher organisms, such as plants, mammals, and insects, that are routinely maintained in culture in the biotechnology laboratory. Instruction focuses on growth and manipulation techniques and long-term maintenance of various laboratory cell cultures that may include anchorage-dependent and suspension cell lines as well as stem cell cultures.

BTEC203: Techniques in DNA Amplification

Units: 1Prerequisites: BTEC110.Acceptable for Credit: CSULecture 0.75 hour, laboratory 0.75 hour. Course Typically Offered: Fall or Spring every 3rd sem

This advanced course provides skills in the performance of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a technique commonly used to amplify DNA in forensics and the biotechnology laboratory. Instruction focuses on understanding the process; potential applications of DNA amplification; and the skills related to the setup, performance, and evaluation of the technique's outcome. The course assumes some prior knowledge of solution preparation and gel electrophoresis.

BTEC204: Recombinant DNA

Units: 1Prerequisites: BTEC110.Acceptable for Credit: CSULecture 0.75 hour, laboratory 0.75 hour. Course Typically Offered: Fall or Spring every 3rd sem

This advanced course provides skills in recombinant DNA technology used to analyze and manipulate DNA in the biotechnology laboratory. Students learn about the process of cloning and analyzing DNA and acquire the skills necessary to cut, piece together, and introduce new DNA molecules into prepared host bacterial cells.

BTEC206: Principles of Separation and HPLC

Units: 1Prerequisites: BTEC110.Acceptable for Credit: CSULecture 0.75 hour, laboratory 0.75 hour. Course Typically Offered: Fall or Spring every 3rd sem

This advanced course provides skills in the separation of biomolecules from complex mixtures using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Instruction focuses on understanding the principles of separation, acquiring skills in the separation of various biomolecules, and analyzing the outcome for the purpose of determining system performance and biomolecular purification. The course assumes some prior knowledge of solution preparation, assays, and spectroscopy.

BTEC207: Techniques in Immunochemistry and ELISA

Units: 1Prerequisites: BTEC110.Acceptable for Credit: CSULecture 0.75 hour, laboratory 0.75 hour. Course Typically Offered: Fall or Spring every 3rd sem

This advanced course provides skills in the use of antibody reagents as a tool in the biotechnology laboratory. It focuses on the nature and specificity of antibody reagents for the identification and quantification of biological molecules. Students learn how to set up, perform, and analyze techniques utilizing antibodies, such as Westerns and ELISAs.

BTEC210: Data Analysis with Excel

Units: 1Prerequisites: NoneAdvisory: CSIT101.Acceptable for Credit: CSULecture 0.75 hour, laboratory 0.75 hour. Course Typically Offered: Fall, Spring

This course teaches students how modern spreadsheet programs can be used to collect and organize data for subsequent tabulation, summarization, and graphical display. It utilizes various forms of scientific data to teach the techniques and skill that facilitate the capture, analysis, and management of data. Topics include importing and organizing data, filtering and sorting, graphing, and statistical analysis functions.

BTEC211: Technical Writing for Regulated Environments

Units: 1Prerequisites: NoneAdvisory: BTEC110 and ACE150, ENGL50, ESL150, or eligibility determined by the English placement process.Acceptable for Credit: CSULecture 1 hour. Course Typically Offered: Fall, Spring

This course provides the requisite tools to understand why technical writing exists and how that writing works in conjunction with the many types of documents found in regulated environments. It also develops the techniques needed to deliver clear and complete passages with precise language. Students apply best practices for technical writing to a variety of documents, including reports, standard operating procedures (SOP), and investigations.

BTEC221: Bioprocessing: Cell Culture and Scale-up

Units: 1.5Prerequisites: BTEC110.Advisory: BTEC120.Acceptable for Credit: CSULecture 0.75 hour, laboratory 2.25 hours. Course Typically Offered: Fall, Spring

This laboratory course develops the skills and knowledge related to the culture of cells in increasingly larger scales for the production of biological molecules. Students grow and monitor a variety of cells (bacterial, yeast, and/or mammalian) on a laboratory scale that emulates the large-scale production used in industry. They become familiar with the cleaning, sterilization, aseptic inoculation, operation, and monitoring of fermenters and bioreactors. The course emphasizes the use of current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMPs) and process control strategies, and students gain experience following Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).

BTEC222: Bioprocessing: Large Scale Purification

Units: 1.5Prerequisites: BTEC110.Advisory: BTEC120.Acceptable for Credit: CSULecture 0.75 hour, laboratory 2.25 hours. Course Typically Offered: Fall, Spring

This laboratory course develops the skills and knowledge related to purification of biological molecules produced on a large scale. Students utilize the most common types of separation equipment, including tangential flow filtration, centrifugation, and column chromatography. They become familiar with the cleaning, sanitization, calibration, operation, and monitoring of large-scale purification equipment. The course emphasizes the use of current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMPs) and process control strategies, and students gain experience following Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).

BTEC292: Internship Studies

Units: 0.5-3Prerequisites: NoneCorequisite: Complete 75 hrs paid or 60 hrs non-paid work per unit.Enrollment Limitation: Instructor, dept chair, and Career Center approval. May not enroll in any combination of cooperative work experience and/or internship studies concurrently.Acceptable for Credit: CSUCourse Typically Offered: To be arranged

This course provides students the opportunity to apply the theories and techniques of their discipline in an internship position in a professional setting under the instruction of a faculty-mentor and site supervisor. It introduces students to aspects of the roles and responsibilities of professionals employed in the field of study. Topics include goal-setting, employability skills development, and examination of the world of work as it relates to the student's career plans. Students must develop new learning objectives and/or intern at a new site upon each repetition. Students may not earn more than 16 units in any combination of cooperative work experience (general or occupational) and/or internship studies during community college attendance.

BTEC296: Topics in Biotechnology

Units: 1-4Prerequisites: NoneAcceptable for Credit: CSULecture 1 hour.Lecture 2 hours.Lecture 3 hours.Lecture 4 hours. Course Typically Offered: To be arranged

This course gives students an opportunity to study topics in Biotechnology that are not included in regular course offerings. Each Topics course is announced, described, and given its own title and 296 number designation in the class schedule.

BTEC299: Occupational Cooperative Work Experience

Units: 1-6Prerequisites: NoneCorequisite: Complete 75 hrs paid or 60 hrs non-paid work per unit.Enrollment Limitation: Career Center approval. May not enroll in any combination of cooperative work experience and/or internship studies concurrently.Acceptable for Credit: CSUCourse Typically Offered: To be arranged

Cooperative Work Experience is intended for students who are employed in a job directly related to their major. It allows such students the opportunity to apply the theories and skills of their discipline to their position and to undertake new responsibilities and learn new skills at work. Topics include goal-setting, employability skills development, and examination of the world of work as it relates to the student's career plans. Students may not earn more than 16 units in any combination of cooperative work experience (general or occupational) and/or internship studies during community college attendance.

BTEC300: Supply Chain and Enterprise Resource Planning in Biomanufacturing

Units: 3Prerequisites: BTEC120.Enrollment Limitation: Only open to students enrolled in the bachelor's degree program in biomanufacturing at MiraCosta College.Lecture 3 hours. Course Typically Offered: Spring

Students gain knowledge of how companies manage the complete flow of materials in a supply chain from suppliers to customers. This course covers the design, planning, execution, monitoring, and control of raw materials, personnel resources, inventory management, and distribution. At the end students will have the knowledge required to take the CPIM (Certified in Production and Inventory Management) certification test administered by APICS (the American Production and Inventory Control Society). This course is open only to students enrolled in the biomanufacturing bachelor's degree program.

BTEC310: Biomanufacturing Process Sciences

Units: 5Prerequisites: BTEC221 and BTEC222.Enrollment Limitation: Only open to students enrolled in the bachelor's degree program in biomanufacturing at MiraCosta College.Lecture 3 hours, laboratory 6 hours. Course Typically Offered: Fall

This lecture/laboratory course examines the biological, physical, and chemical scientific principles that support the design, development, and optimization of key parameters in a biomanufacturing process. Process sciences covers the essential theories that underpin the biomanufacturing operations from product formation through product purification and how those operations scale up and scale down. The topics include fermenter and bioreactor design and the design of downstream processes that maximize the yield, safety, and efficacy of a protein pharmaceutical. This course is open only to students enrolled in the biomanufacturing bachelor's degree program.

BTEC320: Design of Experiments for Biomanufacturing

Units: 4Prerequisites: BTEC110, and BTEC180 or BIO 180.Enrollment Limitation: Only open to students enrolled in the bachelor's degree program in biomanufacturing at MiraCosta College.Lecture 3 hours, laboratory 3 hours. Course Typically Offered: Spring

This course teaches formalized design of experiments (DOE), a system that optimizes a process through the methodical varying of key parameters and a formalized approach to analyzing, interpreting, and applying the results. DOE is designed to make any process more robust and minimize variability from external sources. The course builds upon the statistical concepts required for DOE, including hypothesis testing, confidence intervals, statistical models, and analysis of variance (ANOVA). The DOE approach systematically varies the parameters of a biomanufacturing process to improve its operation. This course is open only to students enrolled in the biomanufacturing bachelor's degree program.

BTEC330: Advanced Topics in Quality Assurance and Regulatory Affairs

Units: 4Prerequisites: BTEC120.Enrollment Limitation: Only open to students enrolled in the bachelor's degree program in biomanufacturing at MiraCosta College.Lecture 4 hours. Course Typically Offered: Fall

This course builds upon previous knowledge of quality assurance and regulatory affairs to study the harmonized quality system approaches of the International Council for Harmonisation Q8 through Q11. The course pays special attention to the topics of quality risk management, qualification, and validation. This course is open only to students enrolled in the biomanufacturing bachelor's degree program.

BTEC340: Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing

Units: 3Prerequisites: BTEC120 and BTEC180.Enrollment Limitation: Only open to students enrolled in the bachelor's degree program in biomanufacturing at MiraCosta College.Lecture 3 hours. Course Typically Offered: Spring

This course covers the Six Sigma approach to the maintenance and improvement of biomanufacturing processes. It incorporates the DMAIC phases: define, measure, analyze, improve, and control. The course covers the use and implementation of lean manufacturing tools that biomanufacturing companies use to reduce waste. This course is open only to students enrolled in the biomanufacturing bachelor's degree program.

BTEC360: Design of Biomanufacturing Facilities, Critical Utilities, Processes, and Equipment

Units: 3Prerequisites: BTEC120, BTEC221, and BTEC222.Enrollment Limitation: Concurrent Enrollment in BTEC221 and BTEC222 if prerequisites not met.Lecture 3 hours. Course Typically Offered: Fall

Students evaluate how the design of a biomanufacturing facility maintains appropriate levels of cleanliness and sterility and promotes the production of safe and effective products. Students analyze the design of the processes, equipment, and instrumentation used in biological production to generate critical utilities, aseptic systems, environmental control and monitoring, upstream production, and downstream (recovery and purification) production within a regulated environment. This course is open only to students enrolled in the biomanufacturing bachelor's degree program.

BTEC400: Bioprocess Monitoring and Control

Units: 4Prerequisites: BTEC310.Enrollment Limitation: Open only to students enrolled in the bachelor's degree program in biomanufacturing at MiraCosta College.Lecture 3 hours, laboratory 3 hours. Course Typically Offered: Fall

This course covers the measurement, monitoring, modeling, and control of biomanufacturing processes and the statistical methodology used for measuring, analyzing, and controlling quality during the manufacturing process, including control charts and the analysis of process capabilities. This course is open only to students enrolled in the biomanufacturing bachelor's degree program.

BTEC410: Methods in Quality, Improvements, Investigations, and Audits

Units: 4Prerequisites: BTEC330 and BTEC340.Enrollment Limitation: Only open to students enrolled in the bachelor's degree program in biomanufacturing at MiraCosta College.Lecture 4 hours. Course Typically Offered: Spring

This course examines investigational methods used by quality assurance departments to analyze process deviations and make decisions about severity of deviation. Students learn to write industry-standard corrective and preventive action (CAPA) reports to conclude what corrective and preventive actions result from the investigation. The course also covers how a company would perform an audit in anticipation of an inspection by the Food and Drug Administration or for the supplier of a key raw material. Course content is aligned with the American Society for Quality's Body of Knowledge for a Certified Quality Technician examination. This course is open only to students enrolled in the biomanufacturing bachelor's degree program.

BTEC460: Capstone Seminar in Biomanufacturing Technologies

Units: 3Prerequisites: BTEC310.Enrollment Limitation: Only open to students enrolled in the bachelor's degree program in biomanufacturing at MiraCosta College.Lecture 3 hours. Course Typically Offered: Fall

This course examines the breadth of products that are produced through biological processes. The course will focus on the advances and emerging technologies in biological production and purification operations. This course is open only to students enrolled in the biomanufacturing bachelor's degree program.

BTEC470: Capstone Seminar in Biomanufacturing Quality

Units: 3Prerequisites: BTEC330.Enrollment Limitation: Only open to students enrolled in the bachelor's degree program in biomanufacturing at MiraCosta College.Lecture 3 hours. Course Typically Offered: Spring

This course examines the process by which the quality systems of biomanufacturing evolve by examining a selected current trend in the laws and regulations governing biopharmaceutical manufacturing. Students evaluate the effectiveness of the laws and regulations governing biopharmaceutical manufacturing. This course serves as a capstone experience for students in biomanufacturing quality. This course is open only to students enrolled in the biomanufacturing bachelor's degree program.

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Biotechnology < MiraCosta College

Biotechnology is technology that utilizes biological systems, living organisms or parts of this to develop or create different products.

Brewing and baking bread are examples of processes that fall within the concept of biotechnology (use of yeast (= living organism) to produce the desired product). Such traditional processes usually utilize the living organisms in their natural form (or further developed by breeding), while the more modern form of biotechnology will generally involve a more advanced modification of the biological system or organism.

With the development of genetic engineering in the 1970s, research in biotechnology (and other related areas such as medicine, biology etc.) developed rapidly because of the new possibility to make changes in the organisms' genetic material (DNA).

Today, biotechnology covers many different disciplines (eg. genetics, biochemistry, molecular biology, etc.). New technologies and products are developed every year within the areas of eg. medicine (development of new medicines and therapies), agriculture (development of genetically modified plants, biofuels, biological treatment) or industrial biotechnology (production of chemicals, paper, textiles and food).

Studies at the Department of Biotechnology and Food Science

Research at the Department of Biotechnology and Food Science

More information about studies and research at The Faculty of Natural Sciences.

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What is Biotechnology? - Department of Biotechnology and Food ...

Biotechnology has proven to be an important tool for better sustainability and food security. It helps farmers grow more food while improving the environment. For example, biotechnology reduces the use of costly inputs and improves weed management, allowing farmers to reduce tillage for better soil, water and air quality. Today, roughly 90 percent of corn, cotton and soybeans grown in the U.S. have been improved through biotechnology, and farmers are choosing biotech traits when growing other crops such as alfalfa, sugarbeets and canola.

Despite rapid adoption by farmers and a strong scientific consensus that biotechnology does not pose health and environmental risks, regulatory burdens are slowing research and innovation of new biotech traits and are starting to reduce U.S. farmers international competitive advantage. In addition, activist groups routinely threaten the availability of new traits by blocking science-based regulatory decisions, filing lawsuits and advocating for labeling mandates.

GM crops require less water and fewer chemical applications than conventional crops, and they are better able to survive drought, weeds, and insects.

U.S. agriculture will maintain its competitive advantage in world markets only if we continue to support innovations in technology and grasp opportunities for future biotech products.

To improve regulation of biotechnology, Farm Bureau supports:

Farm Bureau encourages efforts to educate farmers to be good stewards of biotech crops to preserve accessand marketability.

Farm Bureau believes agricultural products grown using approved biotechnology should not be subject to mandatory labeling. We supportexisting FDA labeling policies and opposestate policies on biotech labeling, identification, use and availability.

On July 29, 2016 the president signed S. 764, the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard, into law. While not perfect, S. 764 was a compromise that Farm Bureau endorsed. The law creates a uniform standard for the disclosure of ingredients derived from bioengineering and allows food companies to provide that information through an on-package statement, symbol or electronic disclosure. It also created a strong federal preemption provision to protect interstate commerce and prevent state-by-state labeling laws and was effective on the date of enactment. USDA has two years to develop the disclosure standards and Farm Bureau has been an active participant in the rulemaking process.

Farm Bureau supports active involvement and leadership by the U.S. government in the development of international standards for biotechnology, including harmonization of regulatory standards, testing and LLP policies.

This resource can help set the record straight on GMOs, to correct misinformation and show why biotechnology is so important to agriculture.

Benefits of Biotech Toolkit (PDF)

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Biotechnology - American Farm Bureau Federation

Hypothetical future event that has the potential to damage human well-being on a global scale

A global catastrophic risk is a hypothetical future event which could damage human well-being on a global scale,[2] even crippling or destroying modern civilization.[3] An event that could cause human extinction or permanently and drastically curtail humanity's potential is known as an existential risk.[4]

Potential global catastrophic risks include anthropogenic risks, caused by humans (technology, governance, climate change), and natural or external risks.[3] Examples of technology risks are hostile artificial intelligence and destructive biotechnology or nanotechnology. Insufficient or malign global governance creates risks in the social and political domain, such as a global war, including nuclear holocaust, bioterrorism using genetically modified organisms, cyberterrorism destroying critical infrastructure like the electrical grid; or the failure to manage a natural pandemic. Problems and risks in the domain of earth system governance include global warming, environmental degradation, including extinction of species, famine as a result of non-equitable resource distribution, human overpopulation, crop failures and non-sustainable agriculture. Examples of non-anthropogenic risks are an asteroid impact event, a supervolcanic eruption, a lethal gamma-ray burst, a geomagnetic storm destroying electronic equipment, natural long-term climate change, or hostile extraterrestrial life.

Philosopher Nick Bostrom classifies risks according to their scope and intensity.[5] A "global catastrophic risk" is any risk that is at least "global" in scope, and is not subjectively "imperceptible" in intensity. Those that are at least "trans-generational" (affecting all future generations) in scope and "terminal"[clarification needed] in intensity are classified as existential risks. While a global catastrophic risk may kill the vast majority of life on earth, humanity could still potentially recover. An existential risk, on the other hand, is one that either destroys humanity (and, presumably, all but the most rudimentary species of non-human lifeforms and/or plant life) entirely or at least prevents any chance of civilization recovering. Bostrom considers existential risks to be far more significant.[6]

Similarly, in Catastrophe: Risk and Response, Richard Posner singles out and groups together events that bring about "utter overthrow or ruin" on a global, rather than a "local or regional" scale. Posner singles out such events as worthy of special attention on cost-benefit grounds because they could directly or indirectly jeopardize the survival of the human race as a whole.[7] Posner's events include meteor impacts, runaway global warming, grey goo, bioterrorism, and particle accelerator accidents.

Researchers experience difficulty in studying near human extinction directly, since humanity has never been destroyed before.[8] While this does not mean that it will not be in the future, it does make modelling existential risks difficult, due in part to survivorship bias.

Bostrom identifies four types of existential risk. "Bangs" are sudden catastrophes, which may be accidental or deliberate. He thinks the most likely sources of bangs are malicious use of nanotechnology, nuclear war, and the possibility that the universe is a simulation that will end. "Crunches" are scenarios in which humanity survives but civilization is slowly destroyed. The most likely causes of this, he believes, are exhaustion of natural resources, a stable global government that prevents technological progress, or dysgenic pressures that lower average intelligence. "Shrieks" are undesirable futures. For example, if a single mind enhances its powers by merging with a computer, it could dominate human civilization. Bostrom believes that this scenario is most likely, followed by flawed superintelligence and a repressive totalitarian regime. "Whimpers" are the gradual decline of human civilization or current values. He thinks the most likely cause would be evolution changing moral preference, followed by extraterrestrial invasion.[4]

Some risks, such as that from asteroid impact, with a one-in-a-million chance of causing humanity's extinction in the next century,[9] have had their probabilities predicted using straightforward, well-understood, and (in principle) precise methods (although even in cases like these, the exact rate of large impacts is contested).[10] Similarly, the frequency of volcanic eruptions of sufficient magnitude to cause catastrophic climate change, similar to the Toba Eruption, which may have almost caused the extinction of the human race,[11] has been estimated at about 1 in every 50,000 years.[12]

The relative danger posed by other threats is much more difficult to calculate. Given the limitations of ordinary calculation and modeling, expert elicitation is frequently used instead to obtain probability estimates.[13] In 2008, an informal survey of experts on different global catastrophic risks at the Global Catastrophic Risk Conference at the University of Oxford suggested a 19% chance of human extinction by the year 2100. The conference report cautions that the results should be taken "with a grain of salt".[14]

The 2016 annual report by the Global Challenges Foundation estimates that an average American is more than five times more likely to die during a human-extinction event than in a car crash.[15][16]

There are significant methodological challenges in estimating these risks with precision. Most attention has been given to risks to human civilization over the next 100 years, but forecasting for this length of time is difficult. The types of threats posed by nature may prove relatively constant, though new risks could be discovered. Anthropogenic threats, however, are likely to change dramatically with the development of new technology; while volcanoes have been a threat throughout history, nuclear weapons have only been an issue since the 20th century. Historically, the ability of experts to predict the future over these timescales has proved very limited. Man-made threats such as nuclear war or nanotechnology are harder to predict than natural threats, due to the inherent methodological difficulties in the social sciences. In general, it is hard to estimate the magnitude of the risk from this or other dangers, especially as both international relations and technology can change rapidly.

Existential risks pose unique challenges to prediction, even more than other long-term events, because of observation selection effects. Unlike with most events, the failure of a complete extinction event to occur in the past is not evidence against their likelihood in the future, because every world that has experienced such an extinction event has no observers, so regardless of their frequency, no civilization observes existential risks in its history.[8] These anthropic issues can be avoided by looking at evidence that does not have such selection effects, such as asteroid impact craters on the Moon, or directly evaluating the likely impact of new technology.[5]

In addition to known and tangible risks, unforeseeable black swan extinction events may occur, presenting an additional methodological problem.[17]

Some scholars have strongly favored reducing existential risk on the grounds that it greatly benefits future generations. Derek Parfit argues that extinction would be a great loss because our descendants could potentially survive for four billion years before the expansion of the Sun makes the Earth uninhabitable.[18][19] Nick Bostrom argues that there is even greater potential in colonizing space. If future humans colonize space, they may be able to support a very large number of people on other planets, potentially lasting for trillions of years.[6] Therefore, reducing existential risk by even a small amount would have a very significant impact on the expected number of people who will exist in the future.

Exponential discounting might make these future benefits much less significant. However, Jason Matheny has argued that such discounting is inappropriate when assessing the value of existential risk reduction.[9]

Some economists have discussed the importance of global catastrophic risks, though not existential risks. Martin Weitzman argues that most of the expected economic damage from climate change may come from the small chance that warming greatly exceeds the mid-range expectations, resulting in catastrophic damage.[20] Richard Posner has argued that we are doing far too little, in general, about small, hard-to-estimate risks of large-scale catastrophes.[21]

Numerous cognitive biases can influence people's judgment of the importance of existential risks, including scope insensitivity, hyperbolic discounting, availability heuristic, the conjunction fallacy, the affect heuristic, and the overconfidence effect.[22]

Scope insensitivity influences how bad people consider the extinction of the human race to be. For example, when people are motivated to donate money to altruistic causes, the quantity they are willing to give does not increase linearly with the magnitude of the issue: people are roughly as concerned about 200,000 birds getting stuck in oil as they are about 2,000.[23] Similarly, people are often more concerned about threats to individuals than to larger groups.[22]

There are economic reasons that can explain why so little effort is going into existential risk reduction. It is a global good, so even if a large nation decreases it, that nation will only enjoy a small fraction of the benefit of doing so. Furthermore, the vast majority of the benefits may be enjoyed by far future generations, and though these quadrillions of future people would in theory perhaps be willing to pay massive sums for existential risk reduction, no mechanism for such a transaction exists.[5]

Some sources of catastrophic risk are natural, such as meteor impacts or supervolcanoes. Some of these have caused mass extinctions in the past. On the other hand, some risks are man-made, such as global warming,[24] environmental degradation, engineered pandemics and nuclear war.

The Cambridge Project at Cambridge University states that the "greatest threats" to the human species are man-made; they are artificial intelligence, global warming, nuclear war, and rogue biotechnology.[25] The Future of Humanity Institute also states that human extinction is more likely to result from anthropogenic causes than natural causes.[5][26]

It has been suggested that learning computers that rapidly become superintelligent may take unforeseen actions, or that robots would out-compete humanity (one technological singularity scenario).[27] Because of its exceptional scheduling and organizational capability and the range of novel technologies it could develop, it is possible that the first Earth superintelligence to emerge could rapidly become matchless and unrivaled: conceivably it would be able to bring about almost any possible outcome, and be able to foil virtually any attempt that threatened to prevent it achieving its objectives.[28] It could eliminate, wiping out if it chose, any other challenging rival intellects; alternatively it might manipulate or persuade them to change their behavior towards its own interests, or it may merely obstruct their attempts at interference.[28] In Bostrom's book, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, he defines this as the control problem.[29] Physicist Stephen Hawking, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and SpaceX founder Elon Musk have echoed these concerns, with Hawking theorizing that this could "spell the end of the human race".[30]

In 2009, the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) hosted a conference to discuss whether computers and robots might be able to acquire any sort of autonomy, and how much these abilities might pose a threat or hazard. They noted that some robots have acquired various forms of semi-autonomy, including being able to find power sources on their own and being able to independently choose targets to attack with weapons. They also noted that some computer viruses can evade elimination and have achieved "cockroach intelligence." They noted that self-awareness as depicted in science-fiction is probably unlikely, but that there were other potential hazards and pitfalls.[31] Various media sources and scientific groups have noted separate trends in differing areas which might together result in greater robotic functionalities and autonomy, and which pose some inherent concerns.[32][33]

A survey of AI experts estimated that the chance of human-level machine learning having an "extremely bad (e.g., human extinction)" long-term effect on humanity is 5%.[34] A survey by the Future of Humanity Institute estimated a 5% probability of extinction by superintelligence by 2100.[14] Eliezer Yudkowsky believes that risks from artificial intelligence are harder to predict than any other known risks due to bias from anthropomorphism. Since people base their judgments of artificial intelligence on their own experience, he claims that they underestimate the potential power of AI.[35]

Biotechnology can pose a global catastrophic risk in the form of bioengineered organisms (viruses, bacteria, fungi, plants or animals). In many cases the organism will be a pathogen of humans, livestock, crops or other organisms we depend upon (e.g. pollinators or gut bacteria). However, any organism able to catastrophically disrupt ecosystem functions, e.g. highly competitive weeds, outcompeting essential crops, poses a biotechnology risk.

A biotechnology catastrophe may be caused by accidentally releasing a genetically engineered organism escaping from controlled environments, by the planned release of such an organism which then turns out to have unforeseen and catastrophic interactions with essential natural or agro-ecosystems, or by intentional usage of biological agents in biological warfare, bioterrorism attacks.[36] Pathogens may be intentionally or unintentionally genetically modified to change virulence and other characteristics.[36] For example, a group of Australian researchers unintentionally changed characteristics of the mousepox virus while trying to develop a virus to sterilize rodents.[36] The modified virus became highly lethal even in vaccinated and naturally resistant mice.[37][38] The technological means to genetically modify virus characteristics are likely to become more widely available in the future if not properly regulated.[36]

Terrorist applications of biotechnology have historically been infrequent. To what extent this is due to a lack of capabilities or motivation is not resolved.[36] However, given current development, more risk from novel, engineered pathogens is to be expected in the future.[36] Exponential growth has been observed in the biotechnology sector, and Noun and Chyba predict that this will lead to major increases in biotechnological capabilities in the coming decades.[36] They argue that risks from biological warfare and bioterrorism are distinct from nuclear and chemical threats because biological pathogens are easier to mass-produce and their production is hard to control (especially as the technological capabilities are becoming available even to individual users).[36] A survey by the Future of Humanity Institute estimated a 2% probability of extinction from engineered pandemics by 2100.[14]

Noun and Chyba propose three categories of measures to reduce risks from biotechnology and natural pandemics: Regulation or prevention of potentially dangerous research, improved recognition of outbreaks and developing facilities to mitigate disease outbreaks (e.g. better and/or more widely distributed vaccines).[36]

Cyberattacks have the potential to destroy everything from personal data to electric grids. Christine Peterson, co-founder and past president of the Foresight Institute, believes a cyberattack on electric grids has the potential to be a catastrophic risk.[39]

Global warming refers to the warming caused by human technology since the 19th century or earlier. Projections of future climate change suggest further global warming, sea level rise, and an increase in the frequency and severity of some extreme weather events and weather-related disasters. Effects of global warming include loss of biodiversity, stresses to existing food-producing systems, increased spread of known infectious diseases such as malaria, and rapid mutation of microorganisms. In November 2017, a statement by 15,364 scientists from 184 countries indicated that increasing levels of greenhouse gases from use of fossil fuels, human population growth, deforestation, and overuse of land for agricultural production, particularly by farming ruminants for meat consumption, are trending in ways that forecast an increase in human misery over coming decades.[3]

An environmental or ecological disaster, such as world crop failure and collapse of ecosystem services, could be induced by the present trends of overpopulation, economic development,[40] and non-sustainable agriculture. Most environmental scenarios involve one or more of the following: Holocene extinction event,[41] scarcity of water that could lead to approximately one half of the Earth's population being without safe drinking water, pollinator decline, overfishing, massive deforestation, desertification, climate change, or massive water pollution episodes. Detected in the early 21st century, a threat in this direction is colony collapse disorder,[42] a phenomenon that might foreshadow the imminent extinction[43] of the Western honeybee. As the bee plays a vital role in pollination, its extinction would severely disrupt the food chain.

An October 2017 report published in The Lancet stated that toxic air, water, soils, and workplaces were collectively responsible for 9 million deaths worldwide in 2015, particularly from air pollution which was linked to deaths by increasing susceptibility to non-infectious diseases, such as heart disease, stroke, and lung cancer.[44] The report warned that the pollution crisis was exceeding "the envelope on the amount of pollution the Earth can carry" and threatens the continuing survival of human societies.[44]

Romanian American economist Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, a progenitor in economics and the paradigm founder of ecological economics, has argued that the carrying capacity of Earth that is, Earth's capacity to sustain human populations and consumption levels is bound to decrease sometime in the future as Earth's finite stock of mineral resources is presently being extracted and put to use; and consequently, that the world economy as a whole is heading towards an inevitable future collapse, leading to the demise of human civilization itself.[45]:303f Ecological economist and steady-state theorist Herman Daly, a student of Georgescu-Roegen, has propounded the same argument by asserting that "... all we can do is to avoid wasting the limited capacity of creation to support present and future life [on Earth]."[46]:370

Ever since Georgescu-Roegen and Daly published these views, various scholars in the field have been discussing the existential impossibility of allocating earth's finite stock of mineral resources evenly among an unknown number of present and future generations. This number of generations is likely to remain unknown to us, as there is no way or only little way of knowing in advance if or when mankind will ultimately face extinction. In effect, any conceivable intertemporal allocation of the stock will inevitably end up with universal economic decline at some future point.[47]:253256 [48]:165 [49]:168171 [50]:150153 [51]:106109 [52]:546549 [53]:142145

Nick Bostrom suggested that in the pursuit of knowledge, humanity might inadvertently create a device that could destroy Earth and the Solar System.[54] Investigations in nuclear and high-energy physics could create unusual conditions with catastrophic consequences. For example, scientists worried that the first nuclear test might ignite the atmosphere.[55][56] More recently, others worried that the RHIC[57] or the Large Hadron Collider might start a chain-reaction global disaster involving black holes, strangelets, or false vacuum states. These particular concerns have been refuted,[58][59][60][61] but the general concern remains.

Biotechnology could lead to the creation of a pandemic, chemical warfare could be taken to an extreme, nanotechnology could lead to grey goo in which out-of-control self-replicating robots consume all living matter on earth while building more of themselvesin both cases, either deliberately or by accident.[62]

Many nanoscale technologies are in development or currently in use.[63] The only one that appears to pose a significant global catastrophic risk is molecular manufacturing, a technique that would make it possible to build complex structures at atomic precision.[64] Molecular manufacturing requires significant advances in nanotechnology, but once achieved could produce highly advanced products at low costs and in large quantities in nanofactories of desktop proportions.[63][64] When nanofactories gain the ability to produce other nanofactories, production may only be limited by relatively abundant factors such as input materials, energy and software.[63]

Molecular manufacturing could be used to cheaply produce, among many other products, highly advanced, durable weapons.[63] Being equipped with compact computers and motors these could be increasingly autonomous and have a large range of capabilities.[63]

Chris Phoenix and Treder classify catastrophic risks posed by nanotechnology into three categories:

Several researchers state that the bulk of risk from nanotechnology comes from the potential to lead to war, arms races and destructive global government.[37][63][65] Several reasons have been suggested why the availability of nanotech weaponry may with significant likelihood lead to unstable arms races (compared to e.g. nuclear arms races):

Since self-regulation by all state and non-state actors seems hard to achieve,[67] measures to mitigate war-related risks have mainly been proposed in the area of international cooperation.[63][68] International infrastructure may be expanded giving more sovereignty to the international level. This could help coordinate efforts for arms control. International institutions dedicated specifically to nanotechnology (perhaps analogously to the International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA) or general arms control may also be designed.[68] One may also jointly make differential technological progress on defensive technologies, a policy that players should usually favour.[63] The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology also suggests some technical restrictions.[69] Improved transparency regarding technological capabilities may be another important facilitator for arms-control.

Grey goo is another catastrophic scenario, which was proposed by Eric Drexler in his 1986 book Engines of Creation[70] and has been a theme in mainstream media and fiction.[71][72] This scenario involves tiny self-replicating robots that consume the entire biosphere using it as a source of energy and building blocks. Nowadays, however, nanotech expertsincluding Drexlerdiscredit the scenario. According to Phoenix, a "so-called grey goo could only be the product of a deliberate and difficult engineering process, not an accident".[73]

The scenarios that have been explored most frequently are nuclear warfare and doomsday devices. Although the probability of a nuclear war per year is slim, Professor Martin Hellman has described it as inevitable in the long run; unless the probability approaches zero, inevitably there will come a day when civilization's luck runs out.[74] During the Cuban missile crisis, U.S. president John F. Kennedy estimated the odds of nuclear war at "somewhere between one out of three and even".[75] The United States and Russia have a combined arsenal of 14,700 nuclear weapons,[76] and there is an estimated total of 15,700 nuclear weapons in existence worldwide.[76] Beyond nuclear, other military threats to humanity include biological warfare (BW). By contrast, chemical warfare, while able to create multiple local catastrophes, is unlikely to create a global one.

Nuclear war could yield unprecedented human death tolls and habitat destruction. Detonating large numbers of nuclear weapons would have an immediate, short term and long-term effects on the climate, causing cold weather and reduced sunlight and photosynthesis[77] that may generate significant upheaval in advanced civilizations.[78] However, while popular perception sometimes takes nuclear war as "the end of the world", experts assign low probability to human extinction from nuclear war.[79][80] In 1982, Brian Martin estimated that a USSoviet nuclear exchange might kill 400450 million directly, mostly in the United States, Europe and Russia, and maybe several hundred million more through follow-up consequences in those same areas.[79] A survey by the Future of Humanity Institute estimated a 4% probability of extinction from warfare by 2100, with a 1% chance of extinction from nuclear warfare.[14]

The 20th century saw a rapid increase in human population due to medical developments and massive increases in agricultural productivity[81] such as the Green Revolution.[82] Between 1950 and 1984, as the Green Revolution transformed agriculture around the globe, world grain production increased by 250%. The Green Revolution in agriculture helped food production to keep pace with worldwide population growth or actually enabled population growth. The energy for the Green Revolution was provided by fossil fuels in the form of fertilizers (natural gas), pesticides (oil), and hydrocarbon-fueled irrigation.[83] David Pimentel, professor of ecology and agriculture at Cornell University, and Mario Giampietro, senior researcher at the National Research Institute on Food and Nutrition (INRAN), place in their 1994 study Food, Land, Population and the U.S. Economy the maximum U.S. population for a sustainable economy at 200 million. To achieve a sustainable economy and avert disaster, the United States must reduce its population by at least one-third, and world population will have to be reduced by two-thirds, says the study.[84]

The authors of this study believe that the mentioned agricultural crisis will begin to have an effect on the world after 2020, and will become critical after 2050. Geologist Dale Allen Pfeiffer claims that coming decades could see spiraling food prices without relief and massive starvation on a global level such as never experienced before.[85][86]

Wheat is humanity's third-most-produced cereal. Extant fungal infections such as Ug99[87] (a kind of stem rust) can cause 100% crop losses in most modern varieties. Little or no treatment is possible and infection spreads on the wind. Should the world's large grain-producing areas become infected, the ensuing crisis in wheat availability would lead to price spikes and shortages in other food products.[88]

Several asteroids have collided with earth in recent geological history. The Chicxulub asteroid, for example, is theorized to have caused the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs 66 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous. No sufficiently large asteroid currently exists in an Earth-crossing orbit; however, a comet of sufficient size to cause human extinction could impact the Earth, though the annual probability may be less than 108.[89] Geoscientist Brian Toon estimates that a 60-mile meteorite would be large enough to "incinerate everybody".[90] Asteroids with around a 1km diameter have impacted the Earth on average once every 500,000 years; these are probably too small to pose an extinction risk, but might kill billions of people.[89][91] Larger asteroids are less common. Small near-Earth asteroids are regularly observed and can impact anywhere on the Earth injuring local populations [92]. As of 2013, Spaceguard estimates it has identified 95% of all NEOs over 1km in size.[93]

In April 2018, the B612 Foundation reported "It's a 100 per cent certain we'll be hit [by a devastating asteroid], but we're not 100 per cent sure when."[94][95] In June 2018, the US National Science and Technology Council warned that America is unprepared for an asteroid impact event, and has developed and released the "National Near-Earth Object Preparedness Strategy Action Plan" to better prepare.[96][97][98][99][100]

Extraterrestrial life could invade Earth[101] either to exterminate and supplant human life, enslave it under a colonial system, steal the planet's resources, or destroy the planet altogether.

Although evidence of alien life has never been documented, scientists such as Carl Sagan have postulated that the existence of extraterrestrial life is very likely. In 1969, the "Extra-Terrestrial Exposure Law" was added to the United States Code of Federal Regulations (Title 14, Section 1211) in response to the possibility of biological contamination resulting from the U.S. Apollo Space Program. It was removed in 1991.[102] Scientists consider such a scenario technically possible, but unlikely.[103]

An article in The New York Times discussed the possible threats for humanity of intentionally sending messages aimed at extraterrestrial life into the cosmos in the context of the SETI efforts. Several renowned public figures such as Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk have argued against sending such messages on the grounds that extraterrestrial civilizations with technology are probably far more advanced than humanity and could pose an existential threat to humanity.[104]

Climate change refers to a lasting change in the Earth's climate. The climate has ranged from ice ages to warmer periods when palm trees grew in Antarctica. It has been hypothesized that there was also a period called "snowball Earth" when all the oceans were covered in a layer of ice. These global climatic changes occurred slowly, prior to the rise of human civilization about 10 thousand years ago near the end of the last Major Ice Age when the climate became more stable. However, abrupt climate change on the decade time scale has occurred regionally. Since civilization originated during a period of stable climate, a natural variation into a new climate regime (colder or hotter) could pose a threat to civilization.

In the history of the Earth, many ice ages are known to have occurred. More ice ages will be possible at an interval of 40,000100,000 years. An ice age would have a serious impact on civilization because vast areas of land (mainly in North America, Europe, and Asia) could become uninhabitable. It would still be possible to live in the tropical regions, but with possible loss of humidity and water. Currently, the world is in an interglacial period within a much older glacial event. The last glacial expansion ended about 10,000 years ago, and all civilizations evolved later than this. Scientists do not predict that a natural ice age will occur anytime soon. This may be due to manmade emissions potentially delaying the possible onset or another ice age for at least another 50,000 years.

A number of astronomical threats have been identified. Massive objects, e.g. a star, large planet or black hole, could be catastrophic if a close encounter occurred in the Solar System. In April 2008, it was announced that two simulations of long-term planetary movement, one at the Paris Observatory and the other at the University of California, Santa Cruz, indicate a 1% chance that Mercury's orbit could be made unstable by Jupiter's gravitational pull sometime during the lifespan of the Sun. Were this to happen, the simulations suggest a collision with Earth could be one of four possible outcomes (the others being Mercury colliding with the Sun, colliding with Venus, or being ejected from the Solar System altogether). If Mercury were to collide with Earth, all life on Earth could be obliterated entirely: an asteroid 15km wide is believed to have caused the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs, whereas Mercury is 4,879km in diameter.[105]

Another cosmic threat is a gamma-ray burst, typically produced by a supernova when a star collapses inward on itself and then "bounces" outward in a massive explosion. Under certain circumstances, these events are thought to produce massive bursts of gamma radiation emanating outward from the axis of rotation of the star. If such an event were to occur oriented towards the Earth, the massive amounts of gamma radiation could significantly affect the Earth's atmosphere and pose an existential threat to all life. Such a gamma-ray burst may have been the cause of the OrdovicianSilurian extinction events. Neither this scenario nor the destabilization of Mercury's orbit are likely in the foreseeable future.[106]

If the Solar System were to pass through a dark nebula, a cloud of cosmic dust, severe global climate change would occur.[107]

A powerful solar flare or solar superstorm, which is a drastic and unusual decrease or increase in the Sun's power output, could have severe consequences for life on Earth.[citation needed]

If our universe lies within a false vacuum, a bubble of lower-energy vacuum could come to exist by chance or otherwise in our universe, and catalyze the conversion of our universe to a lower energy state in a volume expanding at nearly the speed of light, destroying all that we know without forewarning.[108][further explanation needed] Such an occurrence is called vacuum decay.

The magnetic poles of the Earth shifted many times in geologic history. The duration of such a shift is still debated. Theories exist that during such times, the Earth's magnetic field would be substantially weakened, threatening civilization by allowing radiation from the Sun, especially solar wind, solar flares or cosmic radiation, to reach the surface. These theories have been somewhat discredited, as statistical analysis shows no evidence for a correlation between past reversals and past extinctions.[109][110]

Numerous historical examples of pandemics[111] had a devastating effect on a large number of people. The present, unprecedented scale and speed of human movement make it more difficult than ever to contain an epidemic through local quarantines. A global pandemic has become a realistic threat to human civilization.

Naturally evolving pathogens will ultimately develop an upper limit to their virulence.[112] Pathogens with the highest virulence, quickly killing their hosts reduce their chances of spread the infection to new hosts or carriers.[113] This simple model predicts that - if virulence and transmission are not genetically linked - pathogens will evolve towards low virulence and rapid transmission. However, this is not necessarily a safeguard against a global catastrophe, for the following reasons:

1. The fitness advantage of limited virulence is primarily a function of a limited number of hosts. Any pathogen with a high virulence, high transmission rate and long incubation time may have already caused a catastrophic pandemic before ultimately virulence is limited through natural selection.2. In models where virulence level and rate of transmission are related, high levels of virulence can evolve.[114] Virulence is instead limited by the existence of complex populations of hosts with different susceptibilities to infection, or by some hosts being geographically isolated.[112] The size of the host population and competition between different strains of pathogens can also alter virulence.[115] 3. A pathogen that infects humans as a secondary host and primarily infects another species (a zoonosis) has no constraints on its virulence in people, since the accidental secondary infections do not affect its evolution.[116]

A geological event such as massive flood basalt, volcanism, or the eruption of a supervolcano[117] could lead to a so-called volcanic winter, similar to a nuclear winter. One such event, the Toba eruption,[118] occurred in Indonesia about 71,500 years ago. According to the Toba catastrophe theory,[119] the event may have reduced human populations to only a few tens of thousands of individuals. Yellowstone Caldera is another such supervolcano, having undergone 142 or more caldera-forming eruptions in the past 17 million years.[120]A massive volcano eruption would eject extraordinary volumes of volcanic dust, toxic and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere with serious effects on global climate (towards extreme global cooling: volcanic winter if short-term, and ice age if long-term) or global warming (if greenhouse gases were to prevail).

When the supervolcano at Yellowstone last erupted 640,000 years ago, the thinnest layers of the ash ejected from the caldera spread over most of the United States west of the Mississippi River and part of northeastern Mexico. The magma covered much of what is now Yellowstone National Park and extended beyond, covering much of the ground from Yellowstone River in the east to the Idaho falls in the west, with some of the flows extending north beyond Mammoth Springs.[121]

According to a recent study, if the Yellowstone caldera erupted again as a supervolcano, an ash layer one to three millimeters thick could be deposited as far away as New York, enough to "reduce traction on roads and runways, short out electrical transformers and cause respiratory problems". There would be centimeters of thickness over much of the U.S. Midwest, enough to disrupt crops and livestock, especially if it happened at a critical time in the growing season. The worst-affected city would likely be Billings, Montana, population 109,000, which the model predicted would be covered with ash estimated as 1.03 to 1.8 meters thick.[122]

The main long-term effect is through global climate change, which reduces the temperature globally by about 515 degrees C for a decade, together with the direct effects of the deposits of ash on their crops. A large supervolcano like Toba would deposit one or two meters thickness of ash over an area of several million square kilometers.(1000 cubic kilometers is equivalent to a one-meter thickness of ash spread over a million square kilometers). If that happened in some densely populated agricultural area, such as India, it could destroy one or two seasons of crops for two billion people.[123]

However, Yellowstone shows no signs of a supereruption at present, and it is not certain that a future supereruption will occur there.[124][125]

Research published in 2011 finds evidence that massive volcanic eruptions caused massive coal combustion, supporting models for significant generation of greenhouse gases. Researchers have suggested that massive volcanic eruptions through coal beds in Siberia would generate significant greenhouse gases and cause a runaway greenhouse effect.[126] Massive eruptions can also throw enough pyroclastic debris and other material into the atmosphere to partially block out the sun and cause a volcanic winter, as happened on a smaller scale in 1816 following the eruption of Mount Tambora, the so-called Year Without a Summer. Such an eruption might cause the immediate deaths of millions of people several hundred miles from the eruption, and perhaps billions of deaths[127] worldwide, due to the failure of the monsoon[citation needed], resulting in major crop failures causing starvation on a profound scale.[127]

A much more speculative concept is the verneshot: a hypothetical volcanic eruption caused by the buildup of gas deep underneath a craton. Such an event may be forceful enough to launch an extreme amount of material from the crust and mantle into a sub-orbital trajectory.

Planetary management and respecting planetary boundaries have been proposed as approaches to preventing ecological catastrophes. Within the scope of these approaches, the field of geoengineering encompasses the deliberate large-scale engineering and manipulation of the planetary environment to combat or counteract anthropogenic changes in atmospheric chemistry. Space colonization is a proposed alternative to improve the odds of surviving an extinction scenario.[128] Solutions of this scope may require megascale engineering.Food storage has been proposed globally, but the monetary cost would be high. Furthermore, it would likely contribute to the current millions of deaths per year due to malnutrition.[citation needed]

Some survivalists stock survival retreats with multiple-year food supplies.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is buried 400 feet (120m) inside a mountain on an island in the Arctic. It is designed to hold 2.5 billion seeds from more than 100 countries as a precaution to preserve the world's crops. The surrounding rock is 6C (21F) (as of 2015) but the vault is kept at 18C (0F) by refrigerators powered by locally sourced coal.[129][130]

More speculatively, if society continues to function and if the biosphere remains habitable, calorie needs for the present human population might in theory be met during an extended absence of sunlight, given sufficient advance planning. Conjectured solutions include growing mushrooms on the dead plant biomass left in the wake of the catastrophe, converting cellulose to sugar, or feeding natural gas to methane-digesting bacteria.[131][132]

Insufficient global governance creates risks in the social and political domain, but the governance mechanisms develop more slowly than technological and social change. There are concerns from governments, the private sector, as well as the general public about the lack of governance mechanisms to efficiently deal with risks, negotiate and adjudicate between diverse and conflicting interests. This is further underlined by an understanding of the interconnectedness of global systemic risks.[133]

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (est. 1945) is one of the oldest global risk organizations, founded after the public became alarmed by the potential of atomic warfare in the aftermath of WWII. It studies risks associated with nuclear war and energy and famously maintains the Doomsday Clock established in 1947. The Foresight Institute (est. 1986) examines the risks of nanotechnology and its benefits. It was one of the earliest organizations to study the unintended consequences of otherwise harmless technology gone haywire at a global scale. It was founded by K. Eric Drexler who postulated "grey goo".[134][135]

Beginning after 2000, a growing number of scientists, philosophers and tech billionaires created organizations devoted to studying global risks both inside and outside of academia.[136]

Independent non-governmental organizations (NGOs) include the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, which aims to reduce the risk of a catastrophe caused by artificial intelligence,[137] with donors including Peter Thiel and Jed McCaleb.[138] The Lifeboat Foundation (est. 2009) funds research into preventing a technological catastrophe.[139] Most of the research money funds projects at universities.[140] The Global Catastrophic Risk Institute (est. 2011) is a think tank for catastrophic risk. It is funded by the NGO Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs. The Global Challenges Foundation (est. 2012), based in Stockholm and founded by Laszlo Szombatfalvy, releases a yearly report on the state of global risks.[15][16] The Future of Life Institute (est. 2014) aims to support research and initiatives for safeguarding life considering new technologies and challenges facing humanity.[141] Elon Musk is one of its biggest donors.[142] The Nuclear Threat Initiative seeks to reduce global threats from nuclear, biological and chemical threats, and containment of damage after an event.[143] It maintains a nuclear material security index.[144]

University-based organizations include the Future of Humanity Institute (est. 2005) which researches the questions of humanity's long-term future, particularly existential risk. It was founded by Nick Bostrom and is based at Oxford University. The Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (est. 2012) is a Cambridge-based organization which studies four major technological risks: artificial intelligence, biotechnology, global warming and warfare. All are man-made risks, as Huw Price explained to the AFP news agency, "It seems a reasonable prediction that some time in this or the next century intelligence will escape from the constraints of biology". He added that when this happens "we're no longer the smartest things around," and will risk being at the mercy of "machines that are not malicious, but machines whose interests don't include us."[145] Stephen Hawking was an acting adviser. The Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere is a Stanford University-based organization focusing on many issues related to global catastrophe by bringing together members of academic in the humanities.[146][147] It was founded by Paul Ehrlich among others.[148] Stanford University also has the Center for International Security and Cooperation focusing on political cooperation to reduce global catastrophic risk.[149]

Other risk assessment groups are based in or are part of governmental organizations. The World Health Organization (WHO) includes a division called the Global Alert and Response (GAR) which monitors and responds to global epidemic crisis.[150] GAR helps member states with training and coordination of response to epidemics.[151] The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has its Emerging Pandemic Threats Program which aims to prevent and contain naturally generated pandemics at their source.[152] The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has a division called the Global Security Principal Directorate which researches on behalf of the government issues such as bio-security and counter-terrorism.[153]

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Global catastrophic risk - Wikipedia

What is 'Biotechnology'

Biotechnology is the use of living organisms to make products or run processes. Biotechnology is best known for its huge role in the field of medicine, and is also used in other areas such as food and fuel.

Biotechnology involves understanding how living organisms function at the molecular level, so it combines a number of disciplines including biology, physics, chemistry, mathematics, science and technology. Modern biotechnology continues to make very significant contributions to extending the human lifespan and improving the quality of life through numerous ways, including providing products and therapies to combat diseases, generating higher crop yields, and using biofuels to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Hungarian engineer Karl Ereky reportedly coined the term biotechnology, which is often referred to as biotech, in 1919.

Biotechnology in its basic form has existed for thousands of years, dating back to an era when humans first learned to produce bread, beer and wine using the natural process of fermentation. For centuries, the principles of biotechnology were restricted to agriculture, such as harvesting better crops and improving yields by using the best seeds, and breeding livestock.

The field of biotechnology began to develop rapidly from the 19thcentury, with the discovery of microorganisms, Gregor Mendels study of genetics, and ground-breaking work on fermentation and microbial processes by giants in the field such as Pasteur and Lister. Early 20thcentury biotechnology led to the major discovery by Alexander Fleming of penicillin, which went into large-scale production in the 1940s.

Biotechnology took off from the 1950s, spurred by a better understanding in the post-war period of cell function and molecular biology. Every decade since then produced major breakthroughs in biotechnology. These include the discovery of the 3D structure of DNA in the '50s; insulin synthesis and the development of vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella in the '60s; massive strides in DNA research in the '70s; the development of the first biotech-derived drugs and vaccines to treat diseases such as cancer and hepatitis B in the '80s; the identification of numerous genes and the introduction of new treatments in decades for managing multiple sclerosis and cystic fibrosis in the '90s; and the completion of the human genome sequence in the '90s, which made it possible for scientists worldwide to research new treatments for diseases with genetic origins like cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimers.

The biotechnology sector has grown by leaps and bounds since the 1990s. The industry has spawned giant companies in the medical space such as Gilead Sciences, Amgen, Biogen Idec and Celgene. At the other extreme are thousands of small, dynamic biotech companies, many of which are engaged in various aspects of the medical industry such as drug development, genomics, or proteomics, while others areinvolved in areas like bioremediation, biofuels and food products.

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Biotechnology Definition | Investopedia

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The biotechnology industry requires sophisticated, mixed-use facilities for product development, manufacturing, and distribution. Effective process-driven engineering coupled with an in-depth understanding of adaptive bioprocess design, and the requirements that impact it, are critical to meeting your unique design needs.

For more than three decades, CRB has specialized in delivering high-quality bioprocess facilities that are safe, reliable, and sustainable. Utilizing state-of-the-art methodologies and practices, we provide services across the entire project lifecycle, from conceptual design through preliminary and detailed design, construction, commissioning, and validation.

Our biotechnology teams are widely acknowledged as some of the top experts in their field.They actively participate in industry committees that help advance the standards andguidelines for biotech facilities and processes. Drawing fromtheunparalleled experience of our team of experts, many of whomhave worked atoperating companies themselves,CRB can provide a deep understanding of clinical, research, and regulatory requirements specific to your facility, as well as the processes that drive your business.

At CRB, we believe every project deserves acustomized approach.We work collaboratively with youtounderstand your needs, andwetailor our world-class expertise to find the right solutions for your technical challenges.Most importantly,we approach your project with the samemindset thatour founders instilled in thiscompany 30+ years ago -- we continually put your interests first. That's why, when partnering with CRB, you can be assured thatyour teamwill never be satisfied untilwe haveachieved success for your business!

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Merriam-Webster defines biotechnology as the manipulation (as through genetic engineering) of living organisms or their components to produce useful usually commercial products (as pest resistant crops, new bacterial strains, or novel pharmaceuticals). Although this definition could broadly cover thousands of years of agriculture and animal breeding, the term biotechnology (often abbreviated as biotech) usually means the gene engineering technology that revolutionized the biological sciences starting with Cohen and Boyers demonstration of DNA cloning in their Stanford lab in 1973.

Since the first DNA cloning experiments over 40 years ago, genetic engineering techniques have developed to create engineered biological molecules, genetically designed microorganisms and cells, ways to find new genes and figure out how they work, and even transgenic animals and plants. In the midst of this bioengineering revolution, commercial applications exploded, and an industry developed around techniques like gene cloning, directed mutagenesis, DNA sequencing, RNA interference, biomolecule labeling and detection, and nucleic acid amplification.

The biotech industry broadly segments into the medical and agricultural markets. Although enterprising biotechnology is also being applied to other exciting areas like the industrial production of chemicals and bioremediation, the use in these areas is still specialized and limited. On the other hand, the medical and agricultural industries have each undergone a biotech revolution with newand often controversial research efforts, development programs, and business strategies to discover, alter, or produce novel biomolecules and organisms using bioengineering.

Biotechnology introduced a whole new approach to drug development that did not easily integrate into the chemically-focused approach most of the established pharmaceutical companies were using. This shift precipitated a rash of start-up companies starting with the founding of Cetus (now part of Novartis Diagnostics) and Genentech in the mid-1970s.

Since there was an established venture capital community for the high-tech industry in Silicon Valley, many of the early biotechnology companies also clustered in the San Francisco Bay Area. Over the years, several hundreds of start-up companies have been founded and hot-spots have also developed in the US around Seattle, San Diego, North Carolina's Research Triangle Park, Boston, and Philadelphia, as well as a number of international locations including areas around Berlin, Heidelberg, and Munich in Germany, Oxford and Cambridge in the UK, and the Medicon Valley in eastern Denmark and southern Sweden.

Medical biotech, with revenues exceeding $150 billion annually, receives the bulk of biotech investment and research dollars. Even the term biotech is often used synonymously with this segment. This part of biotech constellates around the drug discovery "pipeline" that starts with basic research to identify genes or proteins associated with particular diseases which could be used as drug targets and diagnostic markers. Once a new gene or protein target is found, thousands of chemicals are screened to find potential drugs that affect the target.

The chemicals that look like they might work as drugs (sometimes known as "hits") then need to be optimized, checked for toxic side effects, and, finally, tested in clinical trials.

Biotech has been instrumental in the initial drug discovery and screening stages. Most major pharmaceutical companies have active target-discovery research programs heavily reliant on biotechnology, and smaller new companies such as Exelixis, BioMarin Pharmaceuticals, and Cephalon do focused drug discovery and development often using unique proprietary techniques. In addition to direct drug development, there are companies like Abbott Diagnostics and Becton-Dickenson that are looking for ways to use new disease-related genes to create new clinical diagnostics.

A lot of these tests identify the most responsive patients for new drugs coming into the market. Also, supporting research for new drugs is a long list of research and lab supply companies that provide basic kits, reagents, and equipment. For example, companies such as Life Technologies, Thermo-Fisher, Promega and a host of others provide lab tools and equipment for bioscience research, and companies such as Molecular Devices and DiscoveRx provide specially engineered cells and detection systems for screening potential new drugs.

The same biotechnology used for drug development can also improve agricultural and food products. However, unlike with pharmaceuticals, genetic engineering did not generate a rash of new ag-biotech start-ups. The difference may be that, despite the technological leap forward, biotech did not fundamentally change the nature of the agricultural industry. Manipulating crops and livestock to optimize genetics to enhance utility and improve yields has been going on for thousands of years. In a way, bioengineering just provides a convenient new method.

Established agricultural companies, such as Dow and Monsanto, simply integrated biotech into their R&D programs.

Most of the focus on ag-biotech is on crop improvement, which, as a business, has been quite successful. Since the first genetically modified corn was introduced in 1994, transgenic crop staples such as wheat, soybean, and tomatoes have become the norm. Now, more than 90% of US-grown corn, soybeans, and cotton are bioengineered. Although lagging behind bioengineered plants, use of biotechnology for farm animal improvement is also pretty prevalent.

Remember Dolly, the first cloned sheep? That was in 1996. Now animal cloning is common, and it's clear transgenic farm animals are on the immediate horizon based on headlines highlighting recent developments on the Federation of Animal Societies' website. Although genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have generated a lot of controversy in recent years, ag-biotech has become pretty well established. According to the 2011 International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications' (ISAAA) 2011 report, 160 million hectares of GMO crops were planted in 2011 with sales of over $160 billion in engineered grain.

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Biotechnology and the Biotech Industry

Biotechnology Careers At-a-Glance

The United States leads the pack in biotech revenue, market capitalization, and the number of public biotech companies, according to a 2015 report by Ernst & Young Global Limited. In 2007, three biotechnology companies made more than one billion dollars; by the end of 2014, that number had grown to 26, and there is no end in sight to the massive growth. Biotechnology careers can be found mainly in pharmaceutical companies including Gilead Sciences, Celgene, Biogen, and Regeneron, all companies named by Forbes among the top 10 biotech companies in the country.

People who choose biotech careers have several areas of specialization to choose from. A few options include working as an epidemiologist, microbiologist, biochemist, botany specialist, agricultural and food scientist or biomedical engineer. Graduates might wind up working in a laboratory, creating new seed lines, or in a vast field, testing new soil compositions. They might work to clone animals, develop new pharmaceutical drugs, create a bionic pancreas and so much more. No matter what the career path, it all begins with rigorous study and earning a biotechnology degree.

As with all statistics, salary numbers can be deceiving. There are two reasons why the numbers below should be taken into context.

First, biotechnology careers typically require a bachelors degree for entry, but the field is filled with people who also hold masters and doctoral degrees. For instance, 45 percent of the biomedical engineers who responded to an O*NET survey said a bachelors degree was sufficient; thirty-five percent needed a masters degree and a further 20 percent needed a doctorate. Those with advanced degrees typically have higher earning potential, which partially explains how some biomedical engineers can earn around $50,000 per year while others are clearing $140,000.

Second, there are multiple employers of the scientists listed below. Some of the most prominent are universities, which typically pay less than companies engaged in applied research. Companies make profits, which can be shared with employees; universities do not.

Working in the biotechnology field starts with the proper education. Though there are numerous pathways to the various professions, some steps to success are universal. Heres how to get there.

1

Begin with the right classes

Those interested in biotechnology careers can begin their journey by taking several biology or chemistry electives while in high school. Students should also look into pursuing courses that provide both high school and college credit, such as advanced placement.

2

Start with the bachelors degree

Once high school is over, its time to move into college and earn a bachelors degree in biology, biotechnology (if offered) or a closely related field. Though there are associate degrees in biology that will form a firm foundation for the bachelors, most entry-level positions in biotechnology will require at least a bachelors degree.

3

Get experience

Learning about the job and getting hands-on training in the field can look great on a resume, as well as provide students an opportunity to decide what area of biotechnology interests them the most. Some students choose internships during their college years, while others seek out part-time or full-time work with biotech companies or labs.

4

Pursue graduate studies

In many cases, biotechnology careers will require a graduate degree for advancement. Depending upon the chosen career path, students might need to embark on their masters degree or end up with a PhD in order to do the work they really want to do.

5

Stay up-to-date

Technology is always changing, growing and shifting. Some fields of biotechnology are moving so fast that they can literally change by the week. Thats why it is so important to stay up-to-date by subscribing to industry publications, becoming active in industry associations, keeping in touch with network contacts, and otherwise staying on top of what is happening in the field.

6

Seek out new opportunities in the field

Biotechnology careers offers quite a bit of overlap; for instance, a soil and plant scientist might choose to eventually work as an agricultural and food scientist, and their education might support both paths. Seeking out new opportunities to expand on a current profession is one of the perks of working in the field, and can lead to exciting possibilities.

Those who are interested in biotechnology will discover a dizzying array of possibilities for degrees; anything from the certificate to the PhD can be helpful during the career pursuit. In addition, many biotech degrees easily adapt to online study for students who dont have the ability to attend traditional classes. Heres an overview of which degrees might be more advantageous for certain situations.

I am excited to begin work in biotechnology. I need something that will allow me to get my foot in the door while giving me a strong foundation for graduate work.

I have been working in the field for years, but there are some points that I need to brush up on times have definitely changed these last few years, and Im ready to change with it. But leaving my job to go back to school is simply not an option, as finances would be too tight.

I already have my bachelors degree, but none of my classes focused on the high-level biology I need to know in order to move into the biotech field. I need to get a bit more education while I gain experience.

I definitely want to go into biotech but I have no idea where to begin. I want to test the waters a bit and leave my options open for changing my degree path when I find what I really want to do

I grew up on a farm and love working with animals. I want to be an animal scientist, so I can help make their lives better. Its a journey that will take some serious time and effort, but Im ready for the challenge.

Ive been working in the field for a while, but promotions and pay raises seem rather elusive one manager pointed out that my educational level is holding me back. Its time to remedy that problem.

Choosing the best biotechnology degrees can be tough, as there are so many options out there. However, the desired career path often provides clues to which degree might be best, as well as which level of educational attainment is expected. Heres what students can expect to learn from each.

There are two types of biotechnology certificate programs: Those that are designed for students who have completed their graduate studies and now need more specialized training, or those who have earned their bachelors degree but didnt get all the recommended courses to move into a biotech career. The latter scenario often applies to those who have earned their bachelors in another field but have now chosen a career change to the biotechnology field.

Most certificate programs take a year or less to complete, and are very focused on the particular educational path, with little to no general education courses. Some of the common courses in a certificate program include:

This course helps students understand structural organic chemistry, chemical thermodynamics, acid base chemistry, and reaction mechanisms.

Understanding of Lewis structures

Strategic use of reaction mechanisms

Knowledge of biological molecules and how they form and interact

Students will explore the ethical issues in biotechnology, including real-world case studies and current events in the field.

Applying philosophical theories to critical current issues

Conducting human experimentation in a compassionate and ethical manner

Ethical practices regarding animal testing

This class focuses on the regulatory approval process for drugs, foods, cosmetics and more.

Proper compliance with regulatory rules

Legal implications in regulatory issues

Ethical considerations when bring a new product to market

The associate degree in biotechnology prepares students to eventually move into the bachelors degree program. Though there are some employers who will accept students who have only the associate degree, many entry-level jobs do require the four-year education. The associate degree requires four years of study to complete, though some accelerated programs might allow completion in as little as 18 months. Some common courses found in the associate in biotech program include:

This course serves as an important overview for those who are interested in the biotech field, including a look at career options.

Use of safe laboratory procedures

Understanding the variety of potential careers and how they relate to each other

Applying the basics of biotech to day-to-day life

Students will learn quality assurance principles and how they relate to the biotech fields.

Understanding the differences in regulated and non-regulated work environments

Quality system usage, including Lean and Six Sigma

Theoretical views of quality assurance as applied to real-world events

Focuses on computational biology and bioinformatics as it relates to processes and end results.

Methods for high-volume data collection

Storing and accessing biological data

Use of common programs and algorithms to analyze data

For most careers in biotechnology including that of biomedical engineer, food scientist, microbiologist, plant and soil scientist, and agricultural engineer, among others a bachelors degree is required for entry-level work. The bachelors degree typically takes four years to complete and offers some opportunities for specialization through the use of electives under the biotechnology umbrella. Some classes that students can expect to take include:

Students explore the current research in biological science and analyze it according to biotechnology principles.

Critical analysis of current research

Use of scientific reasoning to make evaluative decisions

Understanding core biological concepts

Focus on the structure and function of cells, with an emphasis on eukaryotic cell biology.

Use molecular biology knowledge to draw research conclusions

Understand DNA replication and repair

The applications of genetic engineering

An in-depth look at safety procedures and proper management of laboratory spaces.

Management of personnel, space, inventory and equipment

Proper communications with stakeholders

Compliance with all safety and health regulations

The masters in biotechnology degree allows students to enhance their knowledge through a specialized curriculum. The masters in biotech is made up of a few core courses, which are then enhanced by electives that focus on the particular educational path a student wants to carve out for themselves. The masters degree takes two to three years to complete, depending upon the program. Many programs are available online, as schools recognize the need for a flexible schedule for those who are already working in the field.

Some courses that can be found at the masters level include:

Focuses on all the aspects of project management, such as working in teams, managing time, structuring projects and more.

Consideration of each phase of a project

Communicating with a wide variety of people involved in a project

Monitoring and controlling change

Students will learn the ins and outs of federal funding and regulations, writing grant proposals, and other sources of funding for research and development.

Students will study how to apply a comprehensive validation philosophy to new ventures in biotech.

Creating equipment or processes that are less prone to failure

Designing robust yet cost-effective projects

Creating validation documents in line with rules and regulations

The doctorate is the pinnacle of the biotechnology field, and offers students quite broad autonomy when choosing an original research project and focus of study. Those who intend to work with in-depth research or move into teaching will need to earn the PhD. Some professions require it, such as that of animal scientist or biophysicist. The doctoral program usually takes between three and four years to complete, though some schools allow up to eight years for completion of the dissertation. Some courses that might be found at the PhD level include:

Students will explore cutting-edge research areas and instruments, with a rotation that takes them through biomedical and biotechnology areas.

Familiarity with the latest technologies

Refresher on how to use instruments that considered out-of-date but might be advantageous for some projects

How to balance research between different laboratories and get the same results using different systems

Students will examine upper-level biotechnology or bio-engineering problems through the lens of equations and statistics.

High-level mathematics literacy

Advanced numerical methods

Refresher on statistical analysis

Students will engage in discussions with leaders in the field on current events and ethical issues that arise from the use of technology in the biological field.

Proper development of biological products

Conducting ethical biomedical research

Marketing and transparency in presenting new biotechnologies to the public

The U.S. biotech industry grew by just about every measure in 2014, according to Ernst and Youngs 2015 industry report. Revenue was up 29 percent, net income increased 293 percent and there were 164 more biotech companies than during the previous year. All of this meant one thing for jobs: There were a lot more of them. The industry added over 10,000 new jobs in 2014, which equates to a staggering 10 percent annual growth rate. Of course, not all of these jobs were for scientists and researchers many were for support staff one might find in any industry. Jobs specific to biotechnology involving research and development and manufacturing are outlined below.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) combines three related careers under the heading of agricultural and food scientist: animal scientist, food scientist and technologist, and soil and plant scientist. Although all have the ultimate task of improving farm productivity, they accomplish this in different ways. Each are discussed separately here.

Many people dont think of farming as being sophisticated. Seeds are planted, crops are watered, and eventually food is harvested. But it is an extraordinarily advanced field, and the largest farms are essentially food factories. Engineers are involved in research and development as well as manufacturing. They might oversee water supply and usage, design comfortable areas for the animals, and create machines that can efficiently harvest crops with minimal food loss. Agricultural engineers spend their time both in offices designing systems and on farms testing and applying those systems.

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Degrees in Biotechnology | How to Have a Biotechnology Career