Entering week 6 and focusing on individual topic, we were first introduced to a video on how biotechnology is going to change our life especially in the medical field where the doctors are able to detect medical problems faster and also making it more convenient to the extent that they can examine their patients at anywhere in the world. I find this amazing and exhilarating because it has shown the immense advancement in the technology to help save more lives and also to make medical help available in everywhere we are. Seeing the animation on how the doctors actually able to detect the problems and with the aids of technology come out with the solution in a short time has made me feel excited to be able to witness this interesting and astonishing gadgets in time to come.
Our attention was brought to the white board where prof wrote down this two statements for us to think about: 1) The Biobusiness revolution will transform our lives (eg: Our health, clothes, material, food and energy) and our economies 2) Biobusiness is likely to be the means by which we achieve sustainable development. With the statistic given that biobusiness contributes to over 25 per cent of global GDP and 40 per cent of the world’s labour force, we can see that the emphasize on biobusiness is huge especially biotechnology. Although biotechnology occupied only a small portion of the market size, it plays a big role in the development of other related industries in the biobusiness in terms of the skills and knowledge past down. Take for example using of algae to produce renewable oil taking over the petroleum thus allow the plastics to be biodegradable.
Looking at the world we are all living today, I find it heartwarming to see many companies giving back to the societies in term of charity and helping those who are really in needs. Bill Gates and his wife Melinda Gates set up a foundation in 2000 focusing on the improvement of health, education and poverty. This foundation has a total fund of more than 22 billion dollar with Bershire Hathaway CEO, Warren Buffett who also contributed billion of dollar. These philanthropies with these large pools of fund invested heavily on research and development in the hopes of creating better ways and technologies to improve the current systems in the world. Nevertheless, they are people whom I feel all the wealthy businessmen should follow, with the understanding that corporate firms are actually acquires revenues more than the GDP of one of the top few countries in the world. Having them step up to push on the technological field to innovate, more people especially from the rural area would be able to benefit from it. Having seen several millions of people dying from virus like common flu, these people were spur on to come out with more vaccines to be distributed to the poorer people as fast as they can. There will definitely be times when the research will fail and millions of dollar could be lost due to that, but they never give up and strive on. The scope of their contribution in the society has four major stream mainly are discovering new health solutions; developing effective vaccines, drugs, and diagnostics; delivering existing interventions; and advocating for supportive global health policies and resources. Having the abilities to change the world, push on a change in the market and policy making and saving million of lives, Bill Gates and Melinda Gates Foundation would eventually reach the heart of many lives and motivate more businessmen to become philanthropies to help the needy and society to become a better place to stay in.
I do like the presentation by Elaine touching on the nanotechnology which i trigger the curiosity in me because it studies objects and particles in the atomic and molecular level. Despite having several jargon appearing and with the lack of any biology background, i was still able to understand how the nanotechnology works and its significant impact on the world. This is definitely a breakthrough in both the medical field and advancement in technology. With that we are able to better understand how certain virus strain is like and producing relevant vaccines to counter them, in addition we are also able to understand deeper in to the complexity of DNA and find ways to ensure that people are able to live healthier and stronger. This topic led to the talks on nanobots which are machines being design at the nano scale. Prof Shahi felt that it was quite scary to even imagine that having ultra small robots in the body controlling the tissues and cells in side us and with most of our cells acting on their own, he felt that it was already quite amazing as they are like the "nanobots" in us. Just like in the movie G.I.JOE with that technology appearing it could destroy the whole effel tower. Imaging the nanobots in our body and it goes berserk just like how several technologies breaking down after some time, we could all well be dead.
This week lesson i would rate 7/10 because biobusiness is very broad with many insights related to biology and tend to be dry thus there are some parts which are hard to understand. Nevertheless, prof did a great job to impart his knowledge to us in a simple way allowing us to absorb quite easily.
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