What is one application of biotechnology in medicine?

One significant application of biotechnology in medicine is the development of gene therapies. This approach focuses on treating or preventing diseases by altering the genes within an individual's cells. Gene therapy can involve correcting defective genes responsible for disease development, introducing new or modified genes to help fight disease, or even replacing missing or malfunctioning genes. This innovative technique has the potential to provide targeted treatment for genetic disorders, certain types of cancer, and viral infections, among other conditions, fundamentally changing how these diseases are managed and treated.

The other options, while important in their respective fields, do not fall under the domain of medical biotechnology. Creating synthetic fertilizers pertains to agricultural biotechnology, producing fuel from algae relates to bioenergy, and enhancing crop resistance again falls within agricultural applications and plant biotechnology. These options illustrate the broad impact of biotechnology across different sectors, but it is the development of gene therapies that directly addresses medical challenges through biological manipulation of genetic material.