Unit 3: Innovations in Biotechnology - Practice Quiz

1 What is the primary basis of biotechnology as a field?

2 Which color of biotechnology is associated with medical and pharmaceutical applications?

3 Which color of biotechnology deals with agriculture and crops?

4 A thrust research area in a field refers to:

5 Genetic engineering primarily involves:

6 Which of the following is a major thrust area in modern biotechnology?

7 The full form of DNA is:

8 PCR technique is used mainly to:

9 Which thrust area focuses on producing biofuels from biological sources?

10 CRISPR-Cas9 is best known as a tool for:

11 Blue biotechnology is associated with:

12 A vaccine works primarily by:

13 Bioinformatics is the field that combines biology with:

14 Recombinant DNA technology allows scientists to:

15 Stem cell research is important mainly because stem cells can:

16 White biotechnology is primarily applied in:

17 A genetically modified organism (GMO) is one whose:

18 Bioremediation uses living organisms mainly to:

19 Fermentation in biotechnology is commonly used to produce:

20 Tissue culture in biotechnology refers to growing cells or tissues:

21 A research team wants to correct a single point mutation in a patient's genome with minimal off-target effects and without introducing double-strand breaks. Which gene-editing approach is most appropriate?

22 In a monoclonal antibody production process, a scientist observes low product titer despite high cell viability. Which upstream parameter should be optimized first to improve specific productivity?

23 A biotech firm develops a Bt cotton variety expressing the cry1Ac gene. What is the primary agricultural advantage this confers?

24 During PCR optimization, non-specific bands appear on the gel. Increasing which parameter is most likely to improve amplification specificity?

25 A metabolic engineer wants a microbe to overproduce a target amino acid. Which strategy would most directly increase flux toward the product?

26 A vaccine developer chooses an mRNA platform over a traditional inactivated-virus platform for a rapidly mutating pathogen. What is the main reason for this choice?

27 In a bioremediation project, engineers deploy microbes to degrade oil spills. Which term best describes enhancing native microbial activity by adding nutrients?

28 A researcher fuses a target protein's gene to a GFP gene to study its cellular location. This is an example of which technique?

29 A CAR-T cell therapy is being designed to target cancer cells. What component of the CAR gives it antigen specificity?

30 In an industrial fermentation, dissolved oxygen drops sharply during exponential growth. What is the most appropriate immediate corrective action?

31 A plant biotechnologist regenerates whole plants from a single somatic cell in culture. This demonstrates which cellular property?

32 A diagnostic lab needs to detect a specific pathogen's RNA quantitatively in patient samples. Which technique is most suitable?

33 A synthetic biology team wants tunable control over a gene's expression level in E. coli. Which element should they modify?

34 In stem cell research, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are created from adult cells. Which set of factors is classically used for reprogramming?

35 A biofuel researcher engineers algae to accumulate more lipids for biodiesel. Limiting which nutrient commonly triggers lipid accumulation?

36 A protein purification workflow uses a His-tagged recombinant protein. Which chromatography method exploits this tag?

37 A team studies gene function by silencing an mRNA transcript without altering the genome. Which technology fits this requirement?

38 In next-generation sequencing, a researcher reports coverage for a genome. What does this value indicate?

39 A tissue engineer designs a scaffold for growing cartilage. Which scaffold property is most critical for supporting cell infiltration and nutrient exchange?

40 A pharmaceutical company produces human insulin using recombinant E. coli. Why must the bacterial system be carefully engineered for this human protein?

41 A CRISPR-Cas9 experiment targeting a disease locus shows high on-target editing but unacceptable off-target cleavage. Which strategy provides the most mechanistically sound reduction in off-target activity without reducing on-target efficiency below usable levels?

42 In metabolic engineering of E. coli for a heterologous pathway, flux is limited by an intermediate that is toxic at high concentration. Which control strategy best balances yield and viability?

43 A monoclonal antibody produced in CHO cells shows batch-to-batch variation in efficacy traced to glycosylation. Which factor is the primary critical quality attribute driving antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC)?

44 In an RNA-seq differential expression study with only 3 replicates per condition, which statistical concern is most critical to address for valid conclusions?

45 A biosensor uses an aptamer that undergoes conformational change upon target binding. The measured dissociation constant is nM. At a target concentration of nM, what approximate fraction of aptamer is bound at equilibrium?

46 In developing an mRNA vaccine, why is incorporation of N1-methylpseudouridine instead of uridine a critical innovation?

47 A fed-batch bioreactor exhibits declining productivity late in culture despite adequate nutrients. Metabolic analysis shows lactate and ammonia accumulation. Which intervention most directly addresses the underlying cause?

48 In a genome-wide association study (GWAS), a SNP reaches . With independent tests and a genome-wide significance threshold of , how should this result be interpreted?

49 A synthetic biology team designs a toggle switch with two mutually repressing genes. For robust bistability, which parameter condition is most essential?

50 In CAR-T cell therapy, tonic (antigen-independent) signaling causes premature T-cell exhaustion. Which design change most effectively mitigates this without abolishing antigen-specific activation?

51 A protein engineering effort uses directed evolution. After several rounds, fitness plateaus below the target. Which explanation and remedy is most consistent with fitness-landscape theory?

52 In single-cell RNA sequencing, a 'batch effect' between two samples processed on different days obscures biological signal. Which approach best corrects this while preserving true biological variation?

53 A recombinant protein forms inclusion bodies in E. coli. Which combination of interventions is most likely to increase soluble yield of correctly folded protein?

54 In an enzyme kinetics assay, adding a compound decreases but leaves unchanged. What type of inhibition is this, and what does it imply mechanistically?

55 A gene therapy uses AAV vectors, but pre-existing neutralizing antibodies limit efficacy in a subset of patients. Which strategy addresses this specific barrier most directly?

56 In a proteomics experiment using label-free quantification, low-abundance proteins are inconsistently detected across runs ('missing values'). Which handling strategy risks introducing the least bias?

57 A biofuel project engineers algae for enhanced lipid accumulation. Nitrogen starvation boosts lipid content but halts growth. Which engineering approach best resolves this growth-vs-lipid tradeoff?

58 In a phylogenetic analysis, two genes give conflicting tree topologies for the same set of species. Which explanation should be evaluated first before concluding the species tree is wrong?

59 A downstream purification uses affinity chromatography with a His-tag. The eluted protein co-purifies with a persistent contaminant. Which follow-up step is most rational to identify and remove it?

60 In designing an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC), the drug-to-antibody ratio (DAR) is a critical parameter. Why is a very high DAR (e.g., ) often counterproductive?