From the 1960’s onwards, intensive agriculture was developed to secure sufficient food production for the world population. The rise of intensive agriculture, characterized by high yields, combined the selection of highly productive plant and animal varieties with the massive use of chemicals (fertilizers, pesticides, antibiotics, etc) and changes in agricultural practices. However, the chemicals used in intensive agriculture and industry have contaminated the environment, including soils, water, and the atmosphere, disrupting the functioning of many ecosystems and altering biodiversity. It also poses a threat to human health, with certain diseases emerging due to toxic compounds from agriculture and industry in our environment.
The BIO_51053_EP course “Biotechnologies for Medicine and Agriculture” presents biotechnological approaches to reduce the environmental impact of agriculture and to prevent or cure diseases caused by toxic pollutants in humans.
The course is divided into nine blocks:
- Plant biotechnology: from domestication to genetically modified organisms.
- Genome editing to improve plants and cure diseases: how does it work?
- Improve plant health: how to switch from pesticides to engineered plant immunity.
- Improve plant nutrition: how to reduce the use of fertilizers by optimizing plant nutrient assimilation and soil health.
- Basic principles of toxicology. The case of pesticides: incidence on human health and therapeutic biotechnologies.
- Endocrine disruptors are a particular class of pollutants: impact on human health and biotechnological tools for endocrine disruptor detection.
- Heavy metals/radionuclides: how do they affect human health? Which technologies for neutralizing heavy metals?
- Control of the transfer of metal pollutants from the soil to the plant for food safety or bioremediation of the environment.
- Cattle feeding and prion diseases: food transmission of a non-conventional infectious agent to humans. From the prion concept to biotechnological tools for prion detection and removal.
