Biotechnology can be harnessed to transform living things into food, medicine and measures to control pollution.

Once controversial, the high-tech hunt for solutions to man-made problems is now increasingly accepted, whether it be for mopping up pollution with microbes or controlling introduced pests.

Biotechnology Australia's Dr Craig Cormick says people are coming around to the idea.

"In the last year or so there's been a big change in the way the public view biotechnology, now viewing it as a solution to global problems rather than perhaps a problem in itself," he said.

Pharmaceuticals

Major multinational drug companies attending a biotech conference in Darwin lead the renewed focus on nature for scientific breakthroughs.

Dr Susan Pond from Johnson and Johnson Research says the industry is moving away from synthetic products.

"Now there's a trend back towards using natural products as building blocks because it hasn't been particularly successful just making our own 'Lego' blocks, and nature makes molecules that are already drug-like," she said.

Aboriginal children in the Northern Territory suffer from the highest rates of fever and infection anywhere in the world and researchers believe biotechnology could offer hope with more effective vaccine.

Biotechnology is already being exploited to create the next generation of renewable fuels.

One American drug firm is investing in using natural enzymes to ferment plants into biobutanol, a cleaner and more powerful alternative to ethanol.

Dr Leo Hyde from Dupont Australia says the technology is already soaring.

"We're not talking about what might happen, we're talking about what is happening," he said.

"We have a world-scale plant that's producing industrial chemical from renewable resource."

But although multinational companies are eyeing off northern Australia's natural wealth, it can take more than a generation to transform discoveries into commercial solutions. © 2007 Australian Broadcasting Corporation