In modern civilization, biotechnology is present in everybody’s life even before we’re born, from fertility assistance to prenatal selection to the home-based pregnancy kits. And with the application of immunizations and antibiotics, which helps to drastically improve the life expectancy through childhood. The food we eat today originates from modified genetically engineered plants – either via new age biotechnology or by using traditional artificial selection without pesticides.

Biotechnology is a technology associated with biology-related to cellular and biomolecular procedures to support various technologies and new products that help us to improve our health and lives. This branch of science has multiple divisions each of which particularly counts for the development in their fields. For example, bio Informatics makes the rapid arrangement & study of genetic data through interdisciplinary areas which refer to solving problems related to biology by using computational techniques.

Applications in the field of marine and aquatic Biotechnology helps to increase cleaning of toxic leaks, increase the production of fisheries, known as Blue Biotechnology. Biotechnology used in agriculture, heading towards the yielding of crops is not only good quantity but also with better quality, act as Green Biotechnology. Red Biotechnology is the use of Biotechnology in medicine, producing antibiotics, and using genetic engineering to achieve genetic cures by manipulating genomes.

Exemplified by the use of organisms to yield valuable chemicals, enzymes for industrial use are known as White Biotechnology and Bio Economics which deals with the applied aspect of biotechnology to increase productivity. We live in an exciting time for biology. Ecological science and evolutionary biology creating a neo-biological civilization supported by science and technology. This along with the concept of genetics could lead to a new level of evolution, leaping forward towards purposive biological evolution.

Biotechnology is increasingly infusing itself not only into all parts of human life but also in other branches of biology. The collection of data is now become easier and inexpensive than the last decade, with all the technological advances. Today big data sets comprising genomes, transcriptosomes, proteomes, and multivariate phenotypes can be synthesized and analyzed easily.

As all of us know that COVID-19 is now a severe ongoing pandemic disease that is spreading rapidly across the world. But to know about how the virus is spreading exponentially in different countries with different population density, we should have an in-depth knowledge of population ecological principles, by which we can easily predict the spreading rate and pattern of the virus in the future.

From various sources, it is already known that coronaviruses are spreading from the bat. But how can we be so sure about this? Here evolutionary genetics study along with technological support helps biologists to conclude that. From the studies, we can know that Coronaviruses have a big genome ranging in length from 26 to 32 kilobases.

They have been known to cause respiratory problems including both upper and lower respiratory tract and infections in CNS in several avian and mammalian hosts, which includes humans. Evolutionary studies refer that coronaviruses are put down within the family Coronaviridae, under the order Nidovirales, and are classified into three groups based on antigenic and genetic relationships.

Evolutionary studies have been clearly shown by comparing genomes of various coronavirus strains that SARS-CoV-2 belongs to the same group (group 2) with the other two coronavirus strains, which causes pandemic in recent past, i.e. SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV and diverge early in its evolutionary progression from other established group 2 viruses. Therefore, according to the current International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses classification system, it was suggested that SARS-CoV-2 is classified as a group 2 coronavirus.

However, phylogenetic and pairwise comparisons of SARS-CoV-2 with other mammalian coronaviruses, which takes into account bat coronaviruses, showed that they share little homology to both group 2 and group 3 coronaviruses and therefore may be considered as a new group. This finding also enlightens the fact that as SARS-CoV-2 and other human coronaviruses share homology with bat coronaviruses, it might be possible that the bats are most likely natural reservoirs of SARS-CoV-2.

Studies on coronaviruses isolated from bats in China also suggested that the bats carry a highly diverse group of coronaviruses, which includes a novel lineage (putative group 5) that is exclusive to bats. These reports suggest that our knowledge of the diversity of coronaviruses are much lesser than the actual scenario and the role of evolutionary genetics study is very much necessary to find the diversity among these coronavirus strains and also to explore the role of bats in the ecosystem of coronaviruses, which will further help the researchers to find probable cures against these viral infections.

Population dynamics analysis showed that coronavirus populations in bats and all other hosts show epidemic-like increases in population. These results indicate that diverse coronaviruses are endemic in different bat species, with repeated introductions to other animals and occasional establishment in other species. This information establishes the fact that bats are the natural hosts for all coronavirus lineages and evolution helps these coronaviruses to diversify their choice of hosts. The taxonomic group where it belongs and how this virus is evolved and mutated which immensely helps the modern biotechnologists to find the cure and developing vaccine more easily against COVID-19 infection.

The COVID-19 pandemic offers several unique job and research related openings to all the biotechnologists worldwide to flex their muscles and to find solutions towards humanity. This will also help to increase our knowledge to find solutions against probable viral pandemics in the near future. Biotechnologists around the world have been aggressively working towards finding solutions that will help to mitigate the threat of COVID-19, whether it is by developing rapid diagnostic tests or developing vaccines that will help us to fight against COVD-19.

Collaborating with biotechnology is now the solution to several problems of the world like problems regarding global population feeding, finding a cure for various hereditary and infectious diseases by using genetic manipulation, preserving ecosystems, solving problems regarding climate change and biodiversity, and beyond these. This provides huge career opportunities in biotechnology and related fields in the upcoming years.

There are several jobs one can get as microbiologists, biochemists, biophysicists, etc. other than being biotechnologists, after getting into this branch of biological science. So we welcome young minds like you at our university to pursue promising subjects like biotechnology which is offered by School of life science and biotechnology of Adamas University that is supported by experienced professors, well-equipped laboratories, on hands practical courses and field excursions along with summer internships in different industries and national laboratories.

Along with that, in our school, we will groom you to become a skilled professional which will further ensure your career in research and also in different industries like chemical industries, agriculture-related industries, food industries, pharma companies, and bioprocessing companies. So welcome to our university.