The biological sciences have experienced enormous growth over the last century,
fueled by a stream of discoveries — such as the principles of genetics, the structure of
DNA, and the discovery of gene splicing technologies. These have opened new fields of
inquiry and provided the basis for myriad applications in industry, agriculture, and
medicine. Among the technological breakthroughs in the life sciences, genetic
engineering plays a particularly significant role.
Genetic engineering is a technique that permits the artificial modification and
transfer of the genetic material from one organism to another and from one species to
another. This technology is used throughout the world to alter the protein produced by a
gene and to design organisms with desirable traits for applications ranging from basic
research and development activities to pharmaceutical and industrial uses. During the
last 30 years, these recombinant techniques have spawned a vibrant biotechnology
industry focused largely on the development of new pharmaceuticals to fight disease.6
By 2000 the annual investment in the biotechnology industry peaked at nearly $29
billion, while employment in the biotechnology industry reached 191,000 by 2001.7
In response to the opportunities presented by these developments the resources
devoted to the life sciences have increased dramatically, making further discoveries
possible. The government has funded biological research generously through the
National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation budgets, with few strings
attached; private foundations and the pharmaceutical industry have also made major
contributions. The number of PhDs awarded each year in the biological and agricultural
sciences has increased steadily; 6,526 were awarded in 2001.8
This ever-expanding research activity has resulted in numerous new
biopharmaceutical products that are transforming medicine. Examples include human
recombinant insulin for the treatment of diabetes, a vaccine against hepatitis B, and
medicines for diabetes, cancer therapy, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, cystic fibrosis, heart
attacks, hemophilia, and sepsis. As knowledge of the human genome increases, it may
even become possible to tailor pharmaceutical products not only to specific diseases but
also to specific individuals. Throughout this process, the time between new discoveries
and their applications has grown ever shorter. One example is the very short time it took
the scientific community to identify the coronavirus as the causal agent of the newly
emerging human disease, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
Biotechnology research is now a truly global enterprise. While industrialized
countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Israel, and Japan
may be the first to develop advanced research and technologies, other countries have a skill base that will enable broad domestic utilization of biological technologies.9 For
example:
China has an aggressive program in plant biotechnology, and as of 2002
plans to increase funding by 400 percent by 2005. This energetic
investment also exists in the Chinese private sector, and the national
scientific establishment is attempting to lure foreign-trained scientists to
return with lucrative financial packages. India is in the process of tripling
funding to its national biotech center, and is promoting the development
and use of genetically modified crops throughout Asia. Singapore has for
many years made a practice of recruiting foreign scientists. Taiwan is
investing large amounts in biotechnology and is seeking citizens to return
home to build up biotechnology in academia and industry. A Brazilian
coalition recently demonstrated sophisticated domestic use of biological
technologies by successfully sequencing the plant pathogen X. fastidiosa in
2000.10
In addition to the dispersed research enterprise, publications and personnel are
also widely spread. Well over 10,000 journals in the life sciences are published
worldwide. Biological Abstracts, an international database on biology, clinical and
experimental medicine, biochemistry, and biotechnology, provides coverage of over
6,000 active international journals and 14,000 archival titles from over 100 countries;
Medline, the online service of the National Institutes of Medicine, provides abstract
information for more than 4,600 biomedical journals published in the United States and
70 other countries; and PubMed currently provides full-text web access to 4,058 journals.
According to Medline, the total number of scientific articles published in the peerreviewed
biomedical literature has increased from 449,109 in 1998 to 491,620 in 2001.
Given the global nature of the biotechnology research and development enterprise, it is
unrealistic to think that biological technologies and the knowledge base upon which they
rest can somehow be isolated within the borders of a few countries.
The rapid advance of scientific knowledge and applications owes much to a
research culture in which knowledge and biological materials are shared among
scientists and people move freely between universities, government agencies, and
private industry. Large numbers of foreign graduate students and postdoctoral
associates have been an essential ingredient in the success of the biological research
enterprise. The scientific workforce is increasingly international; at the National Institutes
of Health, for example, approximately 50 percent of the technical staff are non-U.S.
citizens. Research results have been widely disseminated, so that even high school
students now routinely perform experiments involving recombinant DNA techniques. In
short, a dynamic national and international research enterprise has evolved, with an
extraordinary record of achievement at multiple centers of excellence. These are values
that should be preserved in any sensible policy for minimizing the risks associated with
the misapplication of the fruits of the biotechnology enterprise.
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