Agriculture provides an example of a subcategory within the biotechnology discipline. Natural resources conservation such as conducted at the Grain Marketing and Production Research Center illustrates one research focus within the agricultural sciences area of biotechnology. Research on improving healthfulness of existing food products and research into developing new food products, such as that conducted at the Western Regional Research Center as described at the Science.gov website, also provides an example of research topics in the agricultural segment of biotechnology.
The environmental sciences discipline exemplifies another segment of the biotechnology discipline. Within the environmental sciences sector, renewable energy research such as that conducted at the Dinamic Applied Biotechnology Innovation Center provides one example of a research focus within the environmental branch of biotechnology. Marine environment research studies, such as those done at the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute, are another example of a research area within the environmental science area of biotechnology as listed at the DMOZ Open Directory Project website.
Veterinary research exemplifies yet another subcategory of biotechnology research. Research on animals that transmit infectious diseases is an example of a research focus within the veterinary research science segment of the biotechnology discipline.
Medical research provides still another example of a subdivision within biotechnology. Also sometimes referred to as human life science, research in human medicine has several subdivisions. These further subdivisions include pharmaceutical research and mechanical device research. Within this area, scientists may conduct research on new treatments for disease, on developing new drugs, on finding new uses for existing drugs, on cell level functioning and on developing new devices (such as improvements for prosthetics or designing new diagnostic testing machinery).