There are many inherent problems with interstellar travel that might only be solved elegantly with biotechnology. Consider the following examples:

Bioengineering - a bacteria known as Dynococcus Radiodurans can withstand up to 3 million times the radiation dose that would kill humans.

Dinococcus Radiodurans

An other species lives near hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the ocean. It does not need light to make food, and can survive temperatures as high as 600 deg. Centigrade! What's more, it is actually a Symbiant!!!

Grow Food Without Light

There is a plant that accumulates metals in its vacuoles as it grows so that it tastes bad to pests. Bioengineering efforts to splice its genes to create hybrids that grow faster can clean up contaminated soil, or grow food in soil that would kill other food plants!

Plants that Accumulate Metals

Super-Genetic Von Neumann Machines - We might be considered by definition Von Neumann machines. Imagine that there was a major genetic breakthrough every 50 years, one that was beneficial, and the people that possessed it lived and had children like everyone else. After 500 years there would be a population with 10 major genetic modifications. After 1000 years there would be a large population with at least 20 major genetic enhancements. After 10,000 years and 200 modified genes and population growth mankind might start to look substantially different than his predecessors. Imagine the far future: 50,000 years, 100,000 years, 1 million years. Imagine starships made of living sponge with porous vacuoles for human habitat, an exoskeleton to protect against vacuum, radiation, and meteorites. No light is needed to grow food, or to build machines. Computer & machine elements are interwoven with organic stems & roots. Humans have a grasp of evolutionary time scales and can achieve the unimaginable....

Now consider how some of these advances could benefit Starship Generations:

Starship Generations

Interesting indeed...