Biotech Launches "Third Wave"

Biotechnology was first applied in medicine and then in farming. There are dozens of life-saving drugs on the market and many crops are genetically engineered to withstand weed killers today. Now the push to develop alternative fuels is driving biotechnology's growth into the industrial sector. After decades, energy companies may finally be able to produce ethanol easily and inexpensively thanks to breakthroughs in biotechnology. The Canadian biotech company Iogen Corp. has developed a method of deriving ethanol from a variety of plants including wheat, oats and barley. They are also working on converting the cellulose in crop waste, wood chips and other plants into ethanol. The billionaire co-founder of Sun Microsystems Inc. is investing hundreds of millions of dollars in green technology and will be a featured speaker this year at the World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology & Bioprocessing. Believe it or not, oil companies are also investing heavily in biotechnology these days. That is great.