Everyday our lives are touched by biotechnology. Portrayed as both a force for good as well as harm, the technology stirs passionate debate in the media, the corridors of power, and everyday conversations.

At its most basic level the term biotechnology refers to the use of living organisms or their products to improve human health and the environment. In one form or another biotechnology has been used for many different purposes for thousands of years. Since prehistoric times humans have used yeast cells to raise bread dough and to ferment alcoholic drinks and bacteria cells to make cheeses and yoghurt as well as strong and productive animals and plants to breed stronger and more productive offspring. In more recent times, increasing knowledge about how to manipulate and control the functions of various cells and organisms, including genes, has given birth to a burgeoning number of products and technologies for combating human disease.

The website www.whatisbiotechnology.org aims to become the largest online resource for understanding what biotechnology is, its origins and the major role it plays in healthcare. Drawing on a collection of sources from scientists through to those who are responsible for its commercialization, funding, approval and regulation, the website aims to provide a unique insight into the many complexities involved in the development and application of biotechnology. Such material is to be considered alongside the risks and benefits posed by biotechnology and the personal stories of those whose lives have been affected by it.

Aiming to provide a dynamic and growing resource, the editors of this website welcome comments and suggestions. They are particularly interested in information relating to those who have worked in biotechnology in non-developed countries and for material relating to women whose experiences are often missed in traditional accounts of the science and industry.

The Managing Editor
Dr. Lara Marks, D.Phil, Oxford, is the managing editor of 'What is Biotechnology?' A historian of medicine by training, Dr. Marks has a wide expertise in academic research and has worked for Silico Research, a research consultancy advising on alliances between pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

She was inspired to create the website 'What is Biotechnology?' as a result of her research into the history of biotechnology which drew her attention to how few public resources are available for understanding the development and application of biotechnology in healthcare, specifically diagnostics and therapeutics.

Dr. Marks has published numerous articles and books on a range of subjects. Internationally, she is most well known for her book Sexual Chemistry: A history of the contraceptive pill. The book was published by Yale University Press as a hardback in 2001, and then as a revised paperback edition in 2010. Receiving favorable reviews in both the public press and academic circles, in 2003 the book was awarded 'Outstanding title' by University Press Books for Public and Secondary School Libraries. For reviews of the book see the Yale University Press page about Sexual Chemistry.
She is now in the process of completing a book for Yale University Press called '"The Lock and Key" of Medicine: Monoclonal antibodies and their transformation of healthcare'.

Dr. Marks is a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Social Science, Health and Medicine at King's College London and an Affiliated Research Scholar in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge University. She also teaches for the Open University.

Contributors
Gavin Hubbard originally trained as a Medical Biochemist at the University of Surrey. He has since spent over 10 years working in the biotechnology industry; during this time he has worked on biotechnology techniques and products including vaccines, proteins and viruses but always with a primary focus on immunology and therapeutic monoclonal antibodies. He is now a freelance science writer, writing both for industry and for the general public, with a focus on health, immunology and pathology. He maintains a blog at Sciencehubb.co.uk.

Dr. Alison Kraft is an historian of science, technology and medicine who as affiliations with the University of Nottingham and the University of Exeter. She has worked on the history of biology, radiation, aspects of the 'nuclear age', and various medical technologies. Since 2004 her research has focused on the history of the blood stem cell and its various applications in the contemporary clinical setting. She is currently completing a book for Routledge entitled 'The Scientific, Clinical and Commercial Development of the Stem Cell: From Radiobiology to Regenerative Medicine'.

Dr. Norberto Serpente holds two doctorates: one in molecular biology and one in the history of science which looked the history of visualization practices in modern cell biology. Over his career he has been a postdoctoral researcher at the National Institute for Medical Research, UK, and has worked as a bioscientist in cell biology research in different laboratories in the UK. He is currently an honorary research fellow in the Department of Science and Technology Studies, University College London, UK. His research focuses on the process of the creation of images in the biosciences, focusing on their epistemic justification during the process of their production. He is also interested in cellular models of disease, how biomedical technologies, in particular those developed from the 'molecular revolution' of the late 1970s onwards were transferred from laboratories to healthcare units across history and the historical emergence, development and tension between genetics and epigenetics concepts in biology.