The commercialization of molecular biology: Walter Gilbert and the Biogen startup

Abstract

Recombinant DNA technology was invented in 1973. Within a few years, molecular biologists began developing practical applications and establishing private companies to exploit them commercially. In 1978, Harvard biologist Walter Gilbert, one of the leading figures in the field, joined the founding scientific advisory board of a Swiss biotech startup called Biogen. He later became the company’s CEO. His participation helped Biogen recruit top scientific talent in the United States and Europe and encouraged many of his professional colleagues to follow his example and go into business. In this way, Gilbert became a linchpin in the formation of the contemporary biotechnology industry. Because his adventures in business were shaped by circumstances unique to the late twentieth century, Gilbert’s case adds a distinctive point of reference to studies of academic entrepreneurship. It also points to internal contradictions and conceptual ambiguities in neo-institutional accounts of research privatization.     

The scientific commons in the marketplace: the industrialization of biomedical materials at the New England Enzyme Center, 1963–1980

This paper investigates the industrialization of biomedical materials at the New England Enzyme Center (NEEC) from its establishment as a federally supported biochemical resource center in 1964 through its demise and refashioning into several commercial biotech companies in the late 1970s. It sets this history within the long‐standing debate on the proper relation between science and American economic and political traditions. The NEEC sought to embody two aims that stood in tension: academic independence in knowledge production and the market‐driven interests of the biomedical industry. A clash of values ensued, but built on a particular notion of independence: scientists pragmatically accepted the primacy of the market in the age of the ‘federal research economy.’ The question became how to carve out a space for science and scientific values in the market – an intellectual position that some legal and economic scholars have referred to as a scientific commons. Even so, industry executives came to see the idea of a scientific commons and public knowledge as obstructive to industrial innovation. This paper argues that, as seen through the case of the NEEC, the ascendancy of market values and attitudes in the 1970s played a critical role in reconfiguring the science‐industry relationship and in ‘industrializing’ the life sciences. As illustration of this change, I look at a commercial firm – Genzyme – born out of NEEC’s dissolution.     

Feature Reviews

Abstract

Deutsch, Kenneth L., and John A. Murley, eds. Leo Strauss, the Straussians, and the Study of the American Regime Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield 467 pp., $70.00 cloth, $29.95 paper ISBN 0-8476-8691-4 cloth, ISBN 0-8476-8692-2 paper Publication Date: October 1999

UNITED STATES: Politics and Public Policy: McElroy, John Harmon American Beliefs: What Keeps a Big Country and a Diverse People United Chicago: Ivan R. Dee 260 pp., $25.00 cloth, $14.95 paper ISBN 1-56663-231-5 cloth ISBN 1-56663-314-1 paper Publication Date: April 1999

Leo, Richard A., and George C. Thomas III, eds. The Miranda Debate: Law, Justice, and Policing Boston: Northeastern University Press 339 pp., $24.95 paper, $55.00 cloth ISBN 1-55553-338-8 cloth ISBN 1-55553-422-8 paper Publication Date: February 2000

Bums, James MacGregor, and Georgia J. Sorenson Dead Center: Clinton-Gore Leadership and the Perils of Moderation New York: Simon and Schuster 416 pp., $27.50, ISBN 0-684-83778-1 Publication Date: November 1999

Freeman, Jo, and Victoria Johnson, eds. Waves of Protest: Social Movements since the Sixties Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield 381 pp., $72.00 cloth, $23.95 paper ISBN 0-8476-8747-3 cloth ISBN 0-8476-8748-1 paper Publication Date: June 1999

Peters, Shawn Francis Judging Jehovah's Witnesses: Religious Persecution and the Dawn of the Rights Revolution Lawrence: University Press of Kansas 342 pp., $34.95, ISBN 0-7006-1008-1 Publication Date: April 2000

Pryor, Frederic L., and David L. Schaffer Who's Not Working and Why: Employment, Cognitive Skills, Wages, and the Changing U.S. Labor Market New York: Cambridge University Press 300 pp., $34.95, ISBN 0-521-65152-2 Publication Date: January 1999

Weber, Ronald E., and Paul Brace, eds. American State and Local Politics: Directions for the Twenty-first Century New York: Seven Bridges Press/Chatham House 361 pp., $29.95 paper ISBN 1-56643-071-2 paper Publication Date: September 1999

McAvoy, Gregory E. Controlling Technocracy: Citizen Rationality and the NIMBY Syndrome Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press 168 pp., $55.00 cloth, $18.95 paper ISBN 0-87840-740-5 cloth ISBN 0-87840-741-3 paper Publication Date: October 1999

Uslaner, Eric M. The Movers and the Shirkers: Representatives and Ideologues in the Senate Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press 234 pp., $44.50, ISBN 0-472-10943-X Publication Date: September 1999

Mazur, Eric Michael The Americanization of Religious Minorities: Confronting the Constitutional Order Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press 196 pp., $38.00, ISBN 0-8018-6220-5 Publication Date: November 1999

Sharpe, Elaine B., ed. Culture Wars and Local Politics Lawrence: University Press of Kansas 250 pp., $35.00 cloth. $16.95 paper ISBN 0-7006-0935-0 cloth ISBN 0-7006-0936-9 paper Publication Date: 1999

Orr, Marion Black Social Capital: The Politics of School Reform in Baltimore, 1986-1998 Lawrence: University Press of Kansas 241 pp., $35.00 cloth, $17.95 paper ISBN 0-7006-0981-4 cloth ISBN 0-7006-0982-2 paper Publication Date: October 1999

Scotchie, Joseph, ed. The Paleoconservatives: New Voices of the Old Right New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction 212 pp., $29.95, ISBN 1-56000-427-4 Publication Date: April 1999

Lamis, Alexander P., ed. Southern Politics in the 1990s Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press 490 pp., $39.95, ISBN 0-8071-2374-9 Publication Date: September 1999

Phillips, Kimberley L. Alabama North: African-American Migrants, Community, and Working-Class Activism in Cleveland, 1915-1945 Champaign: University of Illinois Press 334 pp., $59.95 cloth, $21.95 paper ISBN 0-252-02477-X cloth ISBN 0-252-06793-2 paper Publication Date: December 1999

Horwitz, Morton J. The Warren Court and the Pursuit of Justice: A Critical Issue New York: Hill and Wang 132 pp., $10.00 paper ISBN 0-8090-1625-7 paper Publication Date: April 1999

Portz, John, Lana Stein, and Robin R. Jones City Schools and City Politics: Institutions and Leadership in Pittsburgh, Boston, and St. Louis Lawrence: University Press of Kansas 199 pp., $35.00 cloth, $16.95 paper ISBN 0-7006-0979-2 cloth ISBN 0-7006-0980-6 paper Publication Date: September 1999

Jones, Charles O. Clinton and Congress, 1993-1996: Risk, Restoration, and Reelection Norman: University of Oklahoma Press 221 pp., $26.95, ISBN 0-8061-3164-0 Publication Date: October 1999

UNITED STATES: Foreign Policy and National Security: Luck, Edward C. Mixed Messages: American Politics and International Organization, 1919-1999 Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press 374 pp. + xvii, $49.95 cloth, $19.95 paper ISBN 0-8157-5308-X cloth ISBN 0-8157-5307-1 paper Publication Date: November 1999

Ninkovich, Frank The Wilsonian Century: U.S. Foreign Policy since 1900 Chicago: University of Chicago Press 320 pp., $27.50, ISBN 0-226-58648-0 Publication Date: January 1999

Carothers, Thomas Aiding Democracy Abroad: The Learaing Curve Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 408 pp., $39.95 cloth, $19.95 paper ISBN 0-87003-168-6 cloth ISBN 0-87003-169-4 paper Publication Date: November 1999

Cossa, Ralph A., ed. U.S.-Korea-Japan Relations: Building toward a “Virtual Alliance” Washington, DC: CSIS Press 207 pp., $21.95 paper ISBN 0-89206-358-0 paper Publication Date: December 1999

Gienow-Hecht, Jessica C. E. Transmission Impossible: American Journalism as Cultural Diplomacy in Postwar Germany, 1945-1955 Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press 230 pp., $47.50 cloth, $22.50 paper ISBN 0-8071-2310-2 cloth ISBN 0-8071-2409-5 paper Publication Date: November 1999

Mermin, Jonathan Debating War and Peace: Media Coverage of U.S. Intervention in the Post-Vietnam Era Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 162 pp., $45.00 cloth, $14.95 paper ISBN 0-691-00533-8 cloth ISBN 0-691-00534-6 paper Publication Date: January 1999

CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA: Grandin, Greg The Blood of Guatemala: A History of Race and Nation Durham, NC: Duke University Press 343 pp., $54.95 cloth, $18.95 paper ISBN 0-8223-2458-X cloth ISBN 0-8223-2495-4 paper Publication Date: June 2000

Hanchard, Michael, ed. Racial Politics in Contemporary Brazil Durham, NC: Duke University Press 225 pp., $49.95 cloth, $17.95 paper ISBN 0-8223-2252-8 cloth ISBN 0-8223-2272-2 paper Publication Date: September 1999

Pollack, Marcelo The New Right in Chile, 1973-1997 New York: St. Martin's Press 235 pp., $65.00, ISBN 0-312-22278-5 Publication Date: November 1999

EUROPE/COMMONWEALTH OF INDEPENDENT STATES: Sherrington, Philippa The Council of Ministers: Political Authority in the European Union New York: Pinter 213 pp., $69.95 cloth, $24.95 paper ISBN 1-85567-594-3 cloth ISBN 1-85567-721-0 paper Publication Date: April 2000

Dallin, Alexander, and F. I. Firsov, eds.; trans. Vadim A. Staklo (documents) Dimitrov and Stalin, 1934-1943: Letters from the Soviet Archives New Haven, CT: Yale University Press 278 pp., $35.00, ISBN 0-300-08021-2 Publication Date: April 2000

DeClair, Edward G. Politics on the Fringe: The People, Policies, and Organization of the French National Front Durham, NC: Duke University Press 261 pp., $49.95 cloth, $17.95 paper ISBN 0-8223-2237-4 cloth ISBN 0-8223-2139-4 paper Publication Date: August 1999

Ayçoberry, Pierre; trans. Janet Lloyd The Social History of the Third Reich, 1933-1945 New York: New Press 380 pp., $30.00, ISBN 1-56584-549-8 Publication Date: 1999

Huskey, Eugene Presidential Power in Russia Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe 295 pp., $64.95 cloth, $24.95 paper ISBN 1-56324-536-1 cloth ISBN 1-56324-537-X paper Publication Date: September 1999

AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST: Inbar, Efraim Rabin and Israel's National Security Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press/Woodrow Wilson Center Press 276 pp., $32.00, ISBN 0-8018-6217-5 Publication Date: March 1999

Lynch, Marc State Interests and Public Spheres: The International Politics of Jordan's Identity New York: Columbia University Press 327 pp., $49.50 cloth, $18.50 paper ISBN 0-231-11322-6 cloth ISBN 0-231-11323-4 paper Publication Date: September 1999

ASIA AND THE PACIFIC: Baker, Richard W., M. Hadi Soesastro, J. Kristiadi, and Douglas E. Ramage, eds. Indonesia: The Challenge of Change New York: St. Martin's Press 305 pp., $55.00, ISBN 0-312-22261-0 Publication Date: July 1999

Zheng, Yongnian Discovering Chinese Nationalism in China: Modernization, Identity, and International Relations New York: Cambridge University Press 189 pp., $64.95 cloth, $19.95 paper ISBN 0-521-64180-2 cloth ISBN 0-521-64590-5 paper Publication Date: April 1999

Oi, Jean C., and Andrew G. Walder, eds. Property Rights and Economic Reform in China Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press 354 pp., $60.00 cloth, $22.95 paper ISBN 0-8047-3456-9 cloth ISBN 0-8047-3788-6 paper Publication Date: Septmenber 1999

Jumper, Roy Davis Linville Orang Asli Now: The Orang Asli in the Malaysian Political World Lanham, MD: University Press of America 204 pp., $48.00, ISBN 0-7618-1441-8 Publication Date: August 1999

Gong, Gerrit W., ed. Taiwan Strait Dilemmas: China-Taiwan-U.S. Policies in the New Century Washington, DC: CSIS Press 171 pp., $21.95 paper ISBN 0-89206-363-7 paper Publication Date: March 2000

Ruffin, M. Holt, and Daniel C. Waugh, eds. Civil Society in Central Asia Seattle: University of Washington Press 331 pp., $19.95 paper ISBN 0-295-97795-7 paper Publication Date: July 1999

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, LAW, AND ORGANIZATION: Morgan, Patrick M., and Keith L. Nelson, eds. Re-Viewing the Cold War: Domestic Factors and Foreign Policy in the East-West Confrontation Westport, CT: Praeger 223 pp., $69.50 cloth, $24.95 paper ISBN 0-275-96636-4 cloth ISBN 0-275-96637-2 paper Publication Date: March 2000

Becker, David G., and Richard L. Sklar, eds. Postimperialism and World Politics Westport, CT: Praeger 393 pp., $69.50, ISBN 0-275-96613-5 Publication Date: July 1999

Levering, Ralph, and Miriam L. Levering Citizen Action for Global Change: The Neptune Group and Law of the Sea Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press 189 pp., $19.95 paper ISBN 0-8156-2794-7 paper Publication Date: January 1999

Clarke, Desmond M., and Charles Jones, eds. The Rights of Nations: Nations and Nationalism in a Changing World New York: St. Martin's Press 208 pp., $59.95 cloth, $18.95 paper ISBN 0-312-22594-6 cloth ISBN 0-312-22595-4 paper Publication Date: September 1999

Krasner, Stephen D. Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 264 pp., $49.50 cloth, $16.95 paper ISBN 0-691-00702-0 cloth ISBN 0-691-00711-X paper Publication Date: September 1999

COMPARATIVE POLITICS: Christensen, Tom, and B. Guy Peters Structure, Culture, and Governance: A Comparison of Norway and the United States Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield 194 pp., $65.00 cloth, $22.95 paper ISBN 0-8476-9313-9 cloth ISBN 0-8476-9314-7 paper Publication Date: September 1999

Setälä, Maija Referendums and Democratic Government: Normative Theory and the Analysis of Institutions New York: St. Martin's Press 200 pp., $69.95, ISBN 0-312-22101-0 Publication Date: May 1999

THEORY AND METHODOLOGY: Duncan, Christopher M. Fugitive Theory: Political Theory, the Southern Agrarians, and America Lanham, MD: Lexington Books 243 pp., $69.00, ISBN 0-7391-0088-2 Publication Date: December 1999

Walzer, Michael, Menachem Lorberbaum, and Noam J. Zohar, eds.; and Yair Lorberbaum, coeditor The Jewish Political Tradition: Vol. 1, Authority New Haven, CT: Yale University Press 578 pp., $35.00, ISBN 0-300-07822-6 Publication Date: June 2000

Kolnai, Aurel; ed. Daniel J. Mahoney “Privilege and Liberty” and Other Essays in Political Philosophy Lanham, MD: Lexington Books 187 pp., $65.00 cloth, $23.95 paper ISBN 0-7391-0076-9 cloth ISBN 0-7391-0077-7 paper Publication Date: January 2000     

Representing Science that Isn’t: Harvest as Science Fiction Theatre

Abstract

Engaging with the difficulty of plausibly staging scientific developments that have not yet been realized (or even those which might never occur), Manjula Padmanabhan’s 1997 play Harvest relies upon science fictional developments in two technologies, communications and medicine. Rather than merely working around them, Padmanabhan’s play makes use of the challenges inherent in staging a fictional future, calling both representation and power into question. In so doing the play exemplifies the increasing openness of science drama to science fictional ideas.     

We are never alone: a conversation on bio art with Eduardo Kac

Brazilian-born artist Eduardo Kac’s (Rio de Janeiro, 1962) work has raised eyebrows especially for his ‘transgenic art’ projects, among others: Genesis, 1999; GFP Bunny, 2000; The Eight Day, 2001; Natural History of the Enigma, 2003/08. In all of these, Kac and his scientific collaborators realize genetic interventions into living organisms at the same time as they trigger audience reactions to these from playful kinds of interaction that is integrated into the works’ open and dynamic creative process. Yet whereas the ethical and political challenges Kac’s work poses have sparked lively debates within and beyond the realm of the arts – can and must art engage with the ‘creative’ potentials of biotechnology and genetics? Do these not in fact (as Vilém Flusser and others have suggested) hold the key to realizing the vanguardist dream of merging art and life? Or should the artist, from the vantage point of his own creative practice, not rather warn us against the ethical and political risks involved in genetic engineering? – much less attention has been paid to the way Kac’s art also continues and transforms a particular legacy of post-concretist, ambient and performance art in Latin America.

Kac himself has referred to Brazilian artists Flávio de Carvalho, Hélio Oiticica and Lygia Clark as informing his interest in open, participative forms, which characterize both his transgenic and his earlier ‘tele-presence’ art projects. Other Latin American artists of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century have been producing intriguing engagements with living materials, multispecies habitats and organic remains, including such diverse names as Luis Fernando Benedit, Nicola Constantino, Nuno Ramos, or Teresa Margolles. In a conversation with Jens Andermann and Gabriel Giorgi at the University of Zurich’s Center of Latin American Studies on March 12, 2015, Kac addressed the way in which his work might be seen as continuing or challenging long-standing representations of the New World as a repository of ‘nature’, from colonial chronicles of discovery to contemporary discourses of biodiversity and conservation. To what extent is bio art – and the questions it raises about the Anthropocene as a threshold of radical biopolitical convergence between ‘history’ and ‘nature’ – necessarily ‘transcultural’ and planetary in its extension?     

The Fictions of Autonomous Invention: Accumulation by Dispossession,Commodification and Life Patents in Canada

Abstract: In 2002 the Canadian Supreme Court ruled to deny Harvard College a whole organism patent over the oncomouse. In 2004, the same court ruled that Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser had violated Monsanto patents covering GM canola. Both decisions rejected whole organism patents, running counter to US precedents. Yet both, nevertheless, consolidate private claims to life as patentable inventions, and critics claim, with some support from Justices in the Schmeiser case, that patents over genes amount to de facto patents over whole organisms. In this paper I argue these cases are broadly consistent with the notion of accumulation by dispossession as a means to expand the scale and scope of capital accumulation via so‐called ‘extra‐economic’ means. As such, I examine the cases as privatizations, but also as relational moments in the commodification of nature. However, in hoping to unpack and fill out this notion of the extra‐economic, as well as to critically examine the necessarily incomplete character of commodification as a tendency, I look to the ways in which judges and interested activists deliberate over the economic, legal, ecological, ethical, and even metaphysical arguments and representations required to uphold discrete genes, processes, and whole organisms as inventions.