According to the OECD report from 2005, biotechnology refers to the application of science and technology to living organisms, parts, products and models thereof, to alter living or non-living materials for the production of knowledge, goods and services.

Biotechnologies are divided into medical (e.g. the development of new drugs and diagnostic procedures using genome sequencing), agricultural (e.g. genetic optimization of plant variants through smart breeding, for more information see In Focus Genetically modified foods) and industrial (e.g. use of microorganisms in various production processes) areas of application, which entail specific ethical problems.

Key ethical issues in the medical field include the risks of testing new biotechnologies on human test subjects, the high costs of using them on people undergoing treatment and the associated differences in medical treatment based on social inequality, far-reaching threats to privacy arising from the advancing possibilities of DNA decoding and the risk of misuse of new technologies, such as for bioterrorist attacks. However, common research practices such as human embryonic stem cells are controversial issues in their own right (see In Focus Research with Human Embyonic Stem Cells).

More generally, the impact assessment of biotechnological products poses numerous ethical challenges, as they cannot be assessed in every case due to a lack of knowledge in some areas. This applies in particular to those fields of application in which independently viable organisms are created that could escape human control due to unforeseen behavior and independent reproduction (especially in the agricultural sector), which can lead to far-reaching environmental problems, among other concerns. Furthermore, it is feared that biotechnology will reverse the relationship between humans, other organisms and technology, as living beings will increasingly be seen as modifiable and artifactual and thus undergo far-reaching objectification.