There are many ways to define biotechnology. Sometimes biotechnology is considered to be the use of engineering principles in biology. In this book, biotechnology is any technique, technology or application that depends on or benefits from information obtained through the ability to extract, copy, modify or reintroduce the nucleic acids of an organism. An Engineering Introduction to Biotechnology is an insightful text for technical professionals. It is aimed at creating an opportunity for engineers, physical scientists, technical managers and marketers to determine if their technologies and organizations have relevant application in the life sciences. The author has more than a decade of experience in this growing field, primarily as a division leader at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where his staff has conducted investigations in genomics, bioengineering, and related engineering research areas. The book caters to the needs of the non-specialists wanting to know about biotechnology by introducing the basic concepts of biology, emphasizing "omic" or "whole mass" approaches, describing large-scale applications such as DNA sequencing, and demonstrating technical successes with a few case studies of bioinstrumentation