Statement I: Biotechnology deals with techniques of using live organisms or enzymes from organisms to produce products and processes useful to humans.
Statement II: Today, the term biotechnology is used in a restricted sense for processes which use naturally occurring microbes to make products on a larger scale.
In the light of the above statements, choose the correct answer from the options given below:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → Only Statement I is correct.
In a broad sense, biotechnology covers any use of live organisms or their enzymes to make useful products, so making curd, bread or wine also counts. Today the word is used in a narrower sense, for processes that use genetically modified organisms to do the same on a much larger scale.
Statement I: Biotechnology deals with techniques of using live organisms or enzymes from organisms to produce products and processes useful to humans. — True. This is how the book opens the chapter.
Statement II: Today, the term biotechnology is used in a restricted sense for processes which use naturally occurring microbes to make products on a larger scale. — False. The restricted sense refers to processes that use genetically modified organisms. Microbe-mediated processes such as making curd use naturally occurring microbes and fit only the broad sense.
NCERT Extract:
Biotechnology: Principles and Processes – “Biotechnology deals with techniques of using live organisms or enzymes from organisms to produce products and processes useful to humans. In this sense, making curd, bread or wine, which are all microbe-mediated processes, could also be thought as a form of biotechnology. However, it is used in a restricted sense today, to refer to such of those processes which use genetically modified organisms to achieve the same on a larger scale.”