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Overheads
This page holds the text overheads used by Tom Zinnen in his presentations. They are included here for use by anyone, but especially for use by people who have attended presentations by Tom and would like access to his overheads.
By Thomas M. Zinnen, Biotechnology Outreach, University of Wisconsin Biotechnology Center and UW-Extension, 608/265-2420, fax 608/262-6748, zinnen@biotech.wisc.edu
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Key: Biotechnology and Food | Infectious Information | How Old is Biotechnology? | Gen Words | Genesis | 5 F's | FP's | Food as Symbol | Safe or Safe Enough? | Power of Myths | Biotechnology and Food | 6000 Years of Cheese | Given a choice | Better Bubbles Skim or Whole | Better Bubbles | One Difference | So What? | Every Demo an Experiment | Butter shaking | Science as a way of knowing | Most Stringent Test | Compete and Compare | 8 Ways to Stiff Milk | Yogurt Vs. Custard | Saving the Seed | Enzymes Biological catalysts | Enzymes are Proteins | Other Biotechnologies

Biotechnology and Food

What is Biotechnology?
Understanding a Range of Definitions
Broad and Narrow
Evolving Over Time
Connotations:
  • "Biotechnology" vs. "Genetic Engineering" vs. "Recombinant DNA"
Etymology/Lexicography/Philology
  • Bios: "Life"
  • Technikos: "Tools"
  • Logos: "Word, Study Of, Essence"
The Essence of Tools from Living Things
Science Knowledge
From "Scio"="I know"
Technology: Tools
Science: Knowledge.
From Latin "Scio" = "I know"
Technology: Tools.
From Greek "Teuchos" = to make
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Infectious Information

Put a Handle on it.
(What good is suitcase without a handle?)
Analogies: Start with the Familiar, move on to the New.
Q & A: Use the Knowledge & Experience of the Group
Review.
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How Old is Biotechnology?

Biotechnology: traceable as a word back to1917
Biotechnology: fermentations traceable back 6000 years or more
Biotechnology: to many people, it means gene splicing, starting in the early 1970's
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Gen Words

Creation, Origins, Beginnings, & Inheritance
Attributes of God
"Genesis, Genes, Genie, Genius, Ingenuity and Engineer" (8.7 Meg Quicktime Movie)
  • Genesis
  • Genes
  • Genie
  • Genius
  • Ingenius
  • Ingenuity
  • Ingenieur
  • Engineer
Design, Manipulate, Build Attributes of Humans
In French: "Genie Genetique"
In English: "Genetic Engineering"
In Wag: "Genetic Enginerring"
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Genesis: "In the Beginning"

(phrase used to open Genesis, and in the book of John (In the beginning was the Word))
Gene Transfer: Ability to Move a Copy of a Gene from One Type of Living Thing to an Unrelated Living Thing
From Bulls to Bacteria, and Vice Versa
Philosophical, Moral, Ethical, Social and Scientific Concerns
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5F's: Five Things We Get from Living Plants, Animals & Microbes

5F's (11.7 Meg Quicktime Movie)
  • Food
  • Fiber (cotton, wool, silk, leather, fur, linen, paper, lumber, hemp)
  • Fuel (ethanol, methanol, methane, wood, other biomass)
  • Feedstocks (for lubricants, solvents, building blocks for plastics)
  • Pharmaceuticals (diagnostics, vaccines, antibiotics, antitoxins, hormones, enzymes, gene screening, gene therapy)
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"FP's"

  • Food Pyramid
  • Food Production
  • Food Processing
  • Flavor and Preserve Foods
  • Fermentation vs. Putrefaction
  • Food Protection
Biotechnology and Food: Examples from the Age of Pyramids
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Food as Symbol as well as Sustenance

"Wholesome, Holistic and Holy"
  • Is it safe and nutritious?
  • What are the broader social costs?
  • Is it made following my religious rules?
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"Safe vs. Safe Enough"

Qualitative vs. Quantitative
Discrete vs. Continuous
Moving from a yes/no mindset to a judgement about spectrum of possibilities.
Measuring Risk vs. Risk Threshold:
Who draws the line of acceptability?
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The Power of Myths

Greek Chimaera: The Minotaur
Frankenstein
Dracula
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
Jurassic Park
The Fugitive
The Hot Zone
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Biotechnology and Food

  • Grains:
    • Yeast Breads (Raised, Leavened)
    • Beer (Corn, Yeast, Barley Malt, Hops) (Specific types of yeast: brewer's, baker's)
  • Veggies: Sauer Kraut, Pickles, Soy Sauce, FlavrSavr Tomato, (enrichment--salt encourages lactic acid bacteria; inoculation of soy sauce with bacteria; genetic engineering)
  • Fruits: Wine, Vinegar
    (vin, vino, vine, vinaigre, vinegar)
    (yeast & ethanol; bacteria & acetic acid)
  • Meat:
    Summer Sausage
    (adding lactic acid starter culture; store meat without a refrigeration)
  • Milk
    Yogurt, Custard, Cheese, Cultured buttermilk, lactose redused milk; BGH/BST; CHYMAX chymosin; Vitamin D
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6000 Years of Biotechnology with Cheese

Ingredients of Cheddar Cheese:
  • Pasteurized milk
  • Cultures
  • Salt
  • Enzymes (rennet, or "chymosin")
  • Annato color
"Chyme"
Rennet or chymosin from stomachs of suckling calves.
Alternative: chymosin from lab bacteria given a copy of the genetic recipe for chymosin
Bacteria: make lactic acid--milk becomes acidic
Chymosin: coagulates acidic milk--get curds and whey
Curds are squeezed into cheese.
Chymosin, 1990
BGH, 1994
FLAVRSAVR Tomato, 1994 Virus-resistant squash, 1994 Bt potato, 1995
Bt cotton, Bt Corn, herbicide-resistant soybean
Transgenic fish
Transgenic livestock
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Given a Choice

Getting "A Recipe for Cookies" vs. "A Plate of Cookies" Which Would You Take?
Information vs. Product
Modifying and Exchanging Genetic Recipes
Template/Jig/Pattern/Mold/Form
Genes: Constant or In Flux?
Beads on a String, or Cards in a Deck
Gene Exchange in Nature (Transformation, Transduction, Conjugation, Lysogeny)
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Which Makes Better Bubbles: Skim Milk or Whole?

How Would You Answer That Question?
Ask an adult?
Take a vote?
Use your memory?
Look it up in a book?
Think it out?
Test it out?
Try it?
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Which Makes Better Bubbles?

Trying it--
How many kinds of milk do you need?
How many cups do you need?
How many straws?
Do you blow simultaneously or sequentially?
Do you blow one straw after the other, or at the same time?
How do you know you're blowing the same amount of air through each straw?
  1. Switching
  2. Test with two cups with skim milk
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What's the One Known Difference between Skim Milk and Whole?

How can you test whether the idea that the milkfat affects bubbles?
If the milkfat blocks bubbles, then you'd expect that skim milk with some added milkfat would not make bubbles as well as skim milk without added milkfat, right?
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So What?

Compared to What?
If Thus , Then What?
Uff, Da Thinking
Using "If, Then" Predictions to Test Ideas
I, II, Y
How Do We Know
How Do We Know It?
Science Literacy vs. Science Savvy
savvy, savoir-faire, canny, clever, know-how
Science as a Performing Art
Practice, Performance, Passion
  1. What is science?
  2. How is it different from other ways of knowing?
  3. Is it about asking "What dya know?
  4. Or is it about asking "How do you know that?!"
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The Number 2: Make Every Demonstration an "Experiment"

How many hands do you have? Two
What's the Roman Numeral for 2? II: Two Parallel Lines
The Big C: Humans are Born to Compare
The Fair Compare:
Testing Two competing ideas side-by-side, with only one difference.
Identical Twins: Which is Faster in a Footrace?
Shouldn't both have the same running gear?
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Making Butter from Cream: Is Shaking Really Necessary?

Recipe: pour into plastic vessel, add a tight lid, and shake vigorously for about 7 minutes. The cream will turn to butter and to buttermilk.
  • Is this hands-on?
  • Kinetic?
  • Active?
  • Concrete?
  • Empirical?
  • Have you done an experiment?
  • Have you proven that shaking is essential?
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Science as A Way of Knowing--By Experimenting

Quest
Guess
Test
Assess
Quest: To search, to seek, to ask
Guess: generate many possible explanations
Test: design experiments to test which explanations best fit the way things work
Mess: do the experiments, and repeat'em
Assess: Toss out disproved guesses; refine guesses that withstood the test
Attest: Tell others about your work--see if they can repeat it
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Put your ideas to the most stringent test

##### Shake It Til You Break It #####
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Guess: How many possible explanations can you list for cream turning to butter?
  1. Time
  2. Heat
  3. Light
  4. Air
  5. Plastic
  6. Shaking
  7. Others?
How to Test These Different Guesses ? (These Multiple Competing Hypotheses?)
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Compete and Compare, Head to Head, Side by Side

Two vessels of cream; hold one in one hand, the other in the other hand, and shake only one.
  • If both turn to butter, what can you conclude?
  • If neither turns to butter, what can you conclude?
  • If only the shaken one turns to butter, have you shown that shaking is the key?
  • Have you shown that the other treatments aren't the key?
  • Have you shown they aren't needed?
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IDEA
Inquire
Design
Execute
Assess
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  • Credo
  • Cogito
  • Dubito
  • Creatio
  • Experimentio
  • Scio
The Proving Ground
Prove vs. Test vs. Proof
Etymological cousins
(80 Proof; The Proof is in the Pudding; The Exception Proves the Rule)
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Give Me 8 Ways to Make Milk Stiff

  1. Freeze it
  2. Scald it
  3. Powder it
  4. Shake it: butter
  5. Acidify it: cottage cheese
  6. Ferment it: yogurt with bacteria
  7. Enzyme it: custard with enzyme
  8. Ferment it and Enzyme it: Curds and Whey; Squeeze to Cheese.
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Comparing Yogurt and Custard: The Difference between Active and Alive

Compare Yogurt and Custard by How They're Made
Warm Milk
Add Enzyme or Add Bacteria
Gels in a few minutes (custard) or in a few hours (yogurt)
Which is Alive?
How can you test?

Saving the Seed

Serial Transfers: Can you make yogurt for tomorrow by adding a dollop of yogurt to a glass of warm milk today? Can you use a dollop of tomorrow's yogurt to add to a glass of warm milk tomorrow to make another glass of yogurt the following day?
Serial Transfers: Can you make custard for tomorrow by adding a dollop of custard to a glass of warm milk today? Can you use a dollop of tomorrow's custard to add to a glass of warm milk tomorrow to make another glass of custard the following day?
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Enzyme vs. Culture
Active vs. Growing and Active
Compare: Toxin vs. Virus
Enzymes (can act on things other than living cells)
Hormones (active on certain living cells only)
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Enzymes: biological catalysts "in yeast"

Catalysts speed up chemical reactions; the reactions can be putting things together or cutting things apart.
Assembly and Disassembly.
Weld together or torch apart.
Synthesis and Degradation.
Popbeads
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Most enzymes are proteins

Proteins are made of amino acids strung together.
We have 26 letters in the English alphabet.
There are 20 amino acids in the protein alphabet.
Different words have different orders of letters.
Different proteins have different orders of amino acids.
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Other Biotechnologies

Selection and Breeding
Fermentation
Genetic Analysis
Tissue Culture
Monoclonal Antibodies
DNA Sequencing
DNA Analysis
Gene Screening
Accelerated Breeding
Artificial Insemination
Embryo Transfer
Embryo Cloning
Transgenic Animals
Vaccines
Diagnostics
Antibiotics
Detecting Food Pathogens
Biosensors: Detecting Chemicals
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It is incident to physicians, I am afraid, beyond all other men, to mistake subsequence for consequence.
Samuel Johnson, 1734
I have got no further than this: Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.
Samuel Johnson, 1780
Visit SEE Biotech, our companion site dealing the Social, Economic and Ethical implications of Agricultural biotechnology.
Last updated: September 17, 2004
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