Sometimes, when you are a final year student in college, you might find yourself in need of a topic for your final year project. The simplest way to find out what biotechnology topics are available for research is by contacting the Department of Biochemistry or the Biotechnology department at your college or university. You should also check out online research journals on the internet and see if there are any interesting projects being conducted on those topics. These can be used as a source of inspiration for your own research work.
Vaccines and antibiotics are two important areas of biotechnology.
Vaccines are used to prevent diseases. They contain dead or weakened versions of viruses or bacteria which stimulate the immune system to produce antibodies against them. If a person is infected with the disease, their body will recognise it as an invader and fight it off before it can cause any harm. This means that vaccines are one of the best ways we have to stop ourselves getting sick with deadly diseases like polio, smallpox and measles that used to be common worldwide until they were eradicated through vaccination programmes.
Antibiotics are another type of medicine which can treat infections caused by bacteria or fungi in our bodies.
Antibiotics work by targeting specific molecules produced by these microbes (such as DNA) so that they cannot multiply further and cause harm.
Biodiesel is an alternative fuel produced from vegetable oils, animal fats and recycled greases. It can be used in any diesel engine, either in pure form or as a blend with petrodiesel. Biodiesel has been used in Europe since the early 1990s.
Biodiesel is the most common type of biofuel worldwide, because it has several advantages over ethanol:
Genome editing is a group of technologies that allow scientists to edit genes inside living cells. The two main methods are zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs) and transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs).
These technologies allow scientists to change the genetic code in living cells so that it produces new proteins, or changes its behavior in other ways. This can be done for research purposes, for example looking at how diseases develop and what causes them; or it could be used to treat patients with genetic diseases by replacing their defective genes with healthy ones.
Nanotechnology is the study of materials and devices that are so small that they can be measured in nanometers.
A nanometer (nm) is a billionth of a meter, about 25 to 50 atoms wide, depending on the material. One nanometer is about 4 times smaller than the diameter of a hydrogen atom. Nanotechnology involves manipulating matter on an atomic or molecular scale to create materials with novel properties; for example, by altering the chemical structure at an atomic level to improve their conductivity or strength.
Genetically modified food crops are a type of plant that has had its DNA altered in a way that does not occur naturally, through the use of genetic engineering.
GM crops are grown widely around the world and have been consumed by humans for many years. In fact, according to one survey conducted by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), an estimated 75% of all processed foods in supermarkets contain ingredients from genetically modified crops.
This means that almost everyone on Earth has already eaten GM food at some point in their lives!
Algae are a promising source of biodiesel, and there are many ways you can utilize algae in your research. For example, you could use algal ponds to cultivate different species of algae that can be used for biofuels or bioplastics. You could also try growing algae on plastic waste to clean up polluted water.
Synthetic Biology is a branch of biotechnology that deals with the creation of new biological pathways and systems. This is done by using engineering principles to build complex biological systems, such as genetically-engineered bacteria that produce insulin or antibiotics.
In recent years, synthetic biology has been used to produce chemicals ranging from antihypertensive drugs to cancer treatments. The field also holds promise for creating vaccines against viruses like HIV/AIDS and influenza A (H1N1) by tweaking their genetic makeup so they cannot replicate as easily in human cells.
An important topic of research in the field of biology is to explore how genetic material works. Genetic material is composed of DNA and RNA, but there are other types of genetic material that have been discovered recently. One such type is XNA base, which stands for Xenonucleic acid base (so it’s not a typo!).
XNA bases are different from DNA and RNA because they have properties that make them more stable than either one. The structure of XNA bases can resist degradation by enzymes much better than DNA or RNA does, which makes them excellent candidates for storing information for long periods of time without being destroyed by natural processes like heat or oxidation in air. As a result, XNA bases have been considered as possible alternatives to the current forms used today: DNA and RNA!
Biosensors are used to detect a variety of chemicals and biological molecules. They can be made from living cells or from synthetic materials, and are used in medical diagnostics, environmental monitoring, food safety and security, and industrial processes.
A biosensor is a device that detects the presence of an analyte (a chemical compound that is being measured) by using a biological component. For example: An enzyme reacts with an analyte to create an electrically detectable signal that indicates the presence of that specific compound—the more enzymes there are doing this reaction means higher concentration levels! This type of measurement allows us to have devices that give us information about what's going on around us without having any physical contact with whatever it may be we're measuring (like bacteria).
Recombinant protein production in genetically engineered bacterial systems (eg- E Coli).
Recombinant protein production using bacterial expression systems is a technique that allows the introduction of foreign DNA into the genome of a bacterium. The foreign DNA is then expressed as a recombinant protein encoded by this new construct. This process involves the construction of an artificial gene which codes for the desired recombinant protein, followed by transformation with that gene into a host cell. The host cell will incorporate this new DNA into its own genome and begin producing proteins from it.
While there are many ways to create recombinant proteins, we will focus on one method specifically: co-transformation with plasmid vectors containing both antibiotic resistance genes and desired genes for expression (for example green fluorescent protein)
There are a lot of topics that you can choose from, but we recommend you to select the one which interests you most. Don’t forget that this is your final year project, so make sure that it reflects your interest in the subject and allows you to explore new aspects of the field.