Biotechnology refers to the technology-based utilization of biological systems for generation of products to improve quality of human life. Such utilization has been happening since thousands of years in terms of agriculture (raising food crops), food production (baking, brewing, dairy products), and more recently in medicine (antibiotics from soil microorganisms). Developments in the late 20th century have expanded it, to include technological advancements such as genetic engineering, microbial, plant and animal cell and tissue culture, artificial plant hybridization, bio informatics, and so on. Such technological advances in life sciences have found applications in areas including health care, agriculture, medicinal plant cultivation, industrial plant-based products, and environmental management.

Plant biotechnology includes applications of technological tools in plant sciences. Several significant achievements in plant biology such as cell and tissue culture, regeneration of whole plants from somatic cells, genetic recombination, and other such achievements have resulted in applications such as rapid plant propagation, developing uniform healthy plant saplings, somatic hybrids from naturally incompatible species, germ plasma storage, improved transgenic plants, harvesting plant secondary metabolites from cultured plant cells, and so on.

Aseptic culturing of plant cells, tissues, and organs under conditioned physical and chemical environment in vitro gave interesting insights into basic and applied areas of experimental botany including plant secondary metabolism. Extensive exploration of various possibilities of applying this technique to practical use has made it into a promising branch of science with commercial applications in agriculture, horticulture, forestry, and drug development.