Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

expert system

(Encyclopedia)expert system, a computer system or program that uses artificial intelligence techniques to solve problems that ordinarily require a knowledgeable human. The method used to construct such systems, kno...

plant breeding

(Encyclopedia)plant breeding, science of altering the genetic pattern of plants in order to increase their value. Increased crop yield is the primary aim of most plant-breeding programs; advantages of the hybrids a...

biotechnology

(Encyclopedia)biotechnology, the use of biological processes, as through the exploitation and manipulation of living organisms or biological systems, in the development or manufacture of a product or in the technol...

bioethics

(Encyclopedia)bioethics, in philosophy, a branch of ethics concerned with issues surrounding health care and the biological sciences. These issues include the morality of abortion, euthanasia, in vitro fertilizatio...

Kornberg, Arthur

(Encyclopedia)Kornberg, Arthur, 1918–2007, American biochemist, b. Brooklyn, grad. College of the City of New York (B.S., 1937) and Univ. of Rochester (M.D., 1941). In 1942 he joined the U.S. Public Health Servic...

gene therapy

(Encyclopedia)gene therapy, the use of genes and the techniques of genetic engineering in the treatment of a genetic disorder or chronic disease. There are many techniques of gene therapy, all of them still in expe...

Crichton, Michael

(Encyclopedia)Crichton, Michael krīˈtən [key], 1942–2008, American novelist, screenwriter, and director, b. Chicago, grad. Harvard Medical School (1969). He wrote several thrillers under a pseudonym while a st...

Rowley, Janet Davison

(Encyclopedia)Rowley, Janet Davison, 1925–2013, American physician and geneticist, b. New York City, M.D. Univ. of Chicago, 1948. Rowley was associated with the Univ. of Chicago from 1962, and was a full professo...

gene

(Encyclopedia)gene, the structural unit of inheritance in living organisms. A gene is, in essence, a segment of DNA that has a particular purpose, i.e., that codes for (contains the chemical information necessary f...

Sharp, Phillip Allen

(Encyclopedia)Sharp, Phillip Allen, 1944–, American geneticist, b. Falmouth, Ky., Ph.D., Univ. of Illinois, 1969. Sharp joined the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1974, where he has spent ...