Applications of Biology
A laboratory at the Institute of Biochemistry.
The applications of discoveries in biology are numerous and very present in everyday human being. The advances of recent decades in medicine were mainly due to discoveries on the functioning of the human body. The domain pharmaceutical benefits also advanced organic chemistry.
More recently, the discovery of DNA structure and a better understanding of heredity have to modify the fine living and find applications in agricultural and agri-food.
Impacts on society
Since the development of molecular biology and cell physiology in the second half of the twentieth century, advances in biology have become daily and have a huge impact on society: understanding the molecular mechanisms of hundreds of diseases, improved treatments against cancer, understanding the neurological mechanisms, improved treatments for mental illnesses and screening of genetic defects in utero. A better understanding of molecular evolution, substrate physical evolution of species, can translate to humans the findings made in animals, including worms such as C. elegans and the fly Drosophila, which has been shown that the molecular mechanisms of segmentation of the body during the embryogenesis are identical to those of humans, and, generally, to all living metazoan.
However, the rapid progress of biology may raise questions philosophical, serious concerns, even strong opposition from certain associations or nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). These include: the voluntary interruption of pregnancy (abortion), criticized by some religious, cloning, the genetically modified organisms (GMO), sequencing and problems of intellectual property arising.