Gene technology and biotechnology

The exploitation of biological potential for industrial processes currently relies on meta- bolic diversity of microorganisms to provide biological solutions to common problems. Improvement of biotechnological processes would seem an attractive start for the modern molecular biologist, but public opinion and government regulation of the use of genetically modified organisms has restricted the widespread use of gene technology.However, the production of many drugs and fine chemical products relies on recombinant or mutant microorganisms to produce enzymesand many human proteins have been cloned in Escherichia coli and other microorganisms.