Page 15 - Biotech Career Guide

BIOTECHNOLOGY CAREER GUIDE 15
FIRST, A LITTLE HISTORY
The late 1800s launched the rapid
growth of fossil fuels — first coal,
then oil — into the dominant sources
of energy and industrial chemicals
for the entire world. Though widely
available and efficient, these re-
sources come with the enormous
drawback of being largely terrible
for the environment.
Biotechnology offers us the hope
of moving away from dependence
on the fossil fuels that drive our man-
ufacturing and energy sectors. As a
driving force behind a “fourth indus-
trial revolution,” biotechnology prom-
ises change that will equal — even
exceed — the changes brought on
by steam, coal and oil, and the micro-
processor. Instead of depleting natu-
ral resources in a wasteful cycle of
making, using, and throwing away,
biotechnology enables us to build
and maintain the products and struc-
tures that shape our world without
destroying the planet in the process.
Nature-based technologies in combi-
nation with supercharged computa-
tional and machine learning capabili-
ties — all originating with renewable,
earth-friendly raw materials — can
yield advances that will astonish and
amaze us and change our lives in
ways we can hardly imagine.
In the last section, you read
about just some of the amazing in-
novations flowing from applications
of biotechnology. What we eat,
wear, build with, inject into our bod-
ies, use to power our machines —
nearly every product we imagine
making can be reshaped and re-
newed by biotechnology. In just
about any career you could choose,
a grasp of biotechnology can give
you a unique entry point — and
unique advantage — as you gather
learning and experience and find
your way in the workplace.
START WITH BIOLOGY
Learning about the field starts with
the “bio” in biotechnology, or biol-
ogy. In both life and biotechnology,