medical biotechnology: About the Authors

About the Authors

Bernard R. Glick is a professor of biology at the

University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada,

where he received his PhD in biochemistry in

1974. His current research is focused on the biochemical

and genetic mechanisms used by plant

growth-promoting bacteria to facilitate plant

growth. In addition to his nearly 300 research

publications, Dr. Glick is a coauthor of the textbook

Molecular Biotechnology: Principles and

Applications of Recombinant DNA, published by

ASM Press. According to Google Scholar, his work

has been cited more than 15,000 times. In addition

to having served two terms as chair of the Department

of Biology at Waterloo, Dr. Glick has taught

10 courses in five countries on various aspects of

biotechnology.

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Terry L. Delovitch obtained his BSc in chemistry (1966) and

PhD in chemistry/immunology (1971) at McGill University.

He received postdoctoral training at the Massachusetts Institute

of Technology and Stanford University and then joined

the faculty of the University of Toronto. In 1994, he was

appointed senior scientist and director of the Autoimmune

Disease Group on Type 1 Diabetes at the Robarts Research

Institute, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada. After

a 45-year research career, he retired from Western in 2011.

He has received several academic awards and published about

200 research papers, review articles, and book chapters. He

is the former chief scientific advisor to the Juvenile Diabetes

Research Foundation Canada and past president of the International

Immunology of Diabetes Society, and he is a consultant

or advisor for several biotechnology and pharmaceutical

companies, granting agencies, and journal editorial boards and a national allergy, asthma, and

immunology research network. He and his wife, Regina, live in Toronto

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Cheryl L. Patten is an associate professor of microbiology and

associate chair of the Department of Biology at the University

of New Brunswick (UNB) in Fredericton, New Brunswick,

Canada. Dr. Patten received her PhD from the University of

Waterloo in 2001 and did postdoctoral work at McMaster

University before joining the UNB faculty in 2004. Her

research aims to understand how bacteria respond to the

host environment at the biochemical and genetic levels. In

particular, she is interested in secreted bacterial metabolites

that may impact host health. As well as teaching introductory

and advanced courses in microbiology, she enjoys introducing

first-year science students to the wonders of biochemistry and

molecular biology. She is a coauthor of another ASM Press

textbook, Molecular Biotechnology: Principles and Applications

of Recombinant DNA.

medical biotechnology: Preface

medical biotechnology

Cheryl L. Patten, Terry L. Delovitch, Bernard R. Glick

Preface

From the very beginning of the biotechnology revolution in the early

1970s, many scientists understood that this new technology would radically

change the way that we think about health care. They understood

early on, well before any products were commercialized, that medical science

was about to undergo a major paradigm shift in which all of our

previous assumptions and approaches would change dramatically. Forty

years later, biotechnology has delivered on much of its early promise.

Hundreds of new therapeutic agents, diagnostic tests, and vaccines have

been developed and are currently available in the marketplace. Moreover,

it is clear that we are presently just at the tip of a very large iceberg, with

many more products in the pipeline. It is likely that, in the next 10 to 15

years, biotechnology will deliver not only new products to diagnose, prevent,

and treat human disease but also entirely new approaches to treating

a wide range of hitherto diffi cult-to-treat or untreatable diseases.

We have written Medical Biotechnology with the premise that it might

serve as a textbook for a wide range of courses intended for premedical

and medical students, dental students, pharmacists, optometrists, nurses,

nutritionists, genetic counselors, hospital administrators, and other individuals

who are stakeholders in the understanding and advancement of

biotechnology and its impact on the practice of modern medicine. The

book is intended to be as jargon-free and as easy to read as possible. In

some respects, our goal is to demystify the discipline of medical biotechnology.

This is not a medical textbook per se. However, a discussion of

some salient features of selected diseases is presented to illustrate the applications

of many biotechniques and biochemical mechanisms. Thus, this

book may be considered a biomedical road map that provides a fundamental

understanding of many approaches being pursued by scientists to

diagnose, prevent, and treat a wide range of ailments. Indeed, this presents

a large challenge, and the future is diffi cult to predict. Nevertheless, we

hope that this volume will provide a useful introduction to medical biotechnology

for a wide range of individuals.