The CW television series Supernatural has Lucifer's ultimate plan being to unleash a zombie virus, known as the Crotoan Virus, upon the Earth, and to have humanity become ravenous, intelligent, fast zombies which devour and kill each other to cleanse the Earth of humans and to have Lucifer and his angels rule the Earth. It's the largest virus ever discovered. And it's not frozen any more. Even after so many millennia in cold storage, the virus is still infectious. Scientists have named this so-called “zombie” virus Pithovirus sibericum.

The key difference between primary and secondary cell culture is that cells for primary cell culture are obtained directly from an animal or plant tissue, while cells for secondary cell culture are obtained from an already established primary culture. Although primary cells usually have a limited lifespan, they offer a huge number of advantages compared to cell lines. ... Cell lines can be finite or continuous. An immortalized or continuous cell line has acquired the ability to proliferate indefinitely, either through genetic mutations or artificial modifications.

Some of the important products which are produced from animal cell cultures are (i) enzymes (asparaginase, collagenase, urokinase, pepsin, hyaluronidase, rennin, trypsin, tyrosine hydroxylase), (ii) hormones (leutinizing hormone, follicle-stimulating hormone, chorionic hormone and erythropoietin), (iii) vaccines (foot and mouth disease vaccine, vaccines for influenza, measles and mumps, rubella and rabies), (iv) monoclonal antibodies, (v) interferons, etc. (Table 6.7). Tolbert et al. (1982) got success in producing large quantities of human interleukin-2 or T-cell growth factor by culturing a permanent lymphoblastoid T-cell line in a large batch suspension culture in a bioreactor.

Herceptin (trastuzumab) is a monoclonal antibody drug used to prevent the recurrence of/and or treatment of breast cancer that has spread beyond the breast. Herceptin works by attaching itself to the HER2 receptors on the surface of breast cancer cells and blocking them from receiving growth signals. By blocking the signals, Herceptin can slow or stop the growth of the breast cancer. Herceptin is an example of an immune targeted therapy.

Recombinant DNA technology provided a way for scientists to produce human insulin in the laboratory. The gene for human insulin is isolated from human cells and inserted into plasmids. These plasmids are then introduced into bacterial cells, which manufacture the insulin protein based on the human code. Recombinant DNA technology refers to the joining together of DNA molecules from two different species that are inserted into a host organism to produce new genetic combinations that are of value to science, medicine, agriculture, and industry.

In plant cell culture, plant tissues and organs are grown in vitro on artificial media, under aseptic and controlled environment. The technique depends mainly on the concept of totipotentiality of plant cells which refers to the ability of a single cell to express the full genome by cell division. Along with the totipotent potential of plant cell, the capacity of cells to alter their metabolism, growth and development is also equally important and crucial to regenerate the entire plant. Plant tissue culture medium contains all the nutrients required for the normal growth and development of plants. It is mainly composed of macronutrients, micronutrients, vitamins, other organic components, plant growth regulators, carbon source and some gelling agents in case of solid medium.

The size of a population of microorganisms in liquid culture may be measured by counting cells directly or by first diluting the original sample and then counting cell numbers (see below), or by taking some indirect method such as the turbidity (cloudiness) of the culture. This is known as serial dilution. An easier and more accurate method to determine the microbial count is the plate method , where a food sample is placed on a culture medium plate. After an appropriate incubation period, you can count the number of colonies that have formed on the culture medium plate.

Polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, is a technique to make many copies of a specific DNA region in vitro (in a test tube rather than an organism). PCR relies on a thermostable DNA polymerase, Taq polymerase, and requires DNA primers designed specifically for the DNA region of interest. The Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) is an important tool for many applications. For example, it can be used to amplify a sample of DNA when there isn't enough to analyze (e.g. a sample of DNA from a crime scene, archeological samples), as a method of identifying a gene of interest, or to test for disease.

Metagenomics is the study of genetic material recovered directly from environmental samples. The broad field may also be referred to as environmental genomics, ecogenomics or community genomics.

Site-directed mutagenesis, also called site-specific mutagenesis or oligo nucleotide-directed mutagenesis, is a molecular biology technique often used in bio molecular engineering in which a mutation is created at a defined site in a DNA molecule.

Restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) is a type of polymorphism that results from variation in the DNA sequence recognized by restriction enzymes. These are bacterial enzymes used by scientists to cut DNA molecules at known locations. Typically, gel electrophoresis is used to visualize RFLPs. RFLP is one of the earliest molecular markers developed for genetic mapping. The principle of RFLP markers is that any genomic DNA can be differentiated according to the presence or absence of restriction enzyme sites. Restriction enzymes recognize and cut at the particular site.

Bioinformatics has become an important part of many areas of biology. ... It plays a role in the text mining of biological literature and the development of biological and gene ontologies to organize and query biological data. It also plays a role in the analysis of gene and protein expression and regulation. Biological databases play a central role in bioinformatics. They offer scientists the opportunity to access a wide variety of biologically relevant data, including the ge- nomic sequences of an increasingly broad range of organisms.

A major activity in bioinformatics is to develop software tools to generate useful biological knowledge. Bioinformatics has become an important part of many areas of biology. ... In structural biology, it aids in the simulation and modeling of DNA, RNA, and protein structures as well as molecular interactions. Bioinformatics has become an important part of many areas of biology. ... It plays a role in the text mining of biological literature and the development of biological and gene ontologies to organize and query biological data. It also plays a role in the analysis of gene and protein expression and regulation.

Biotechnology is an interdisciplinary subject that covers topics such as biochemistry, cell biology, genetics, molecular biology, embryology, chemical engineering and robotics. Most of the classes you will take as a biotechnology major will involve laboratory work, along with analyzing biological research. The goal of biotechnology is to produce drugs by using living organisms such as bacterial cells, yeast, mammalian cells, etc., that are placed in culture to produce substances with pharmacological activity, such as monoclonal antibodies for the treatment of tumors.

A typical microarray experiment involves the hybridization of an mRNA molecule to the DNA template from which it is originated. Many DNA samples are used to construct an array. The amount of mRNA bound to each site on the array indicates the expression level of the various genes. This number may run in thousands. All the data is collected and a profile is generated for gene expression in the cell.

An array is an orderly arrangement of samples where matching of known and unknown DNA samples is done based on base pairing rules. An array experiment makes use of common assay systems such as microplates or standard blotting membranes. The sample spot sizes are typically less than 200 microns in diameter usually contain thousands of spots.

Thousands of spotted samples known as probes (with known identity) are immobilized on a solid support (a microscope glass slides or silicon chips or nylon membrane). The spots can be DNA, cDNA, or oligonucleotides. These are used to determine complementary binding of the unknown sequences thus allowing parallel analysis for gene expression and gene discovery. An experiment with a single DNA chip can provide information on thousands of genes simultaneously. An orderly arrangement of the probes on the support is important as the location of each spot on the array is used for the identification of a gene.