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.     

Commercializing science: nineteenth- and twentieth-century academic scientists as consultants,patentees, and entrepreneurs

Abstract

The collection of essays introduced in this article contributes to the debate on the commercialization of academic science by shifting the focus from institutional developments meant to foster university technology transfer to the actions of individual scientists. Instead of searching for the origins of the ‘entrepreneurial university,’ this special issue examines the personal involvement of academic physicists, engineers, photographic scientists, and molecular biologists in three types of commercial activity: consulting, patenting, and full-blown business entrepreneurship. The authors investigate how this diverse group of teachers and researchers perceived their institutional and professional environments, their career prospects, the commercial value of their knowledge and reputation, and their ability to exploit these assets. By documenting academic scientists’ response to market opportunities, the articles suggest that, already in the decades around 1900, commercial work was widespread and, in some cases, integral to academics’ teaching and research activity.     

衣及权力:明代中国的礼仪、服装与国家权威

As soon as Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder of the Ming Dynasty, assumed the throne, he and his Confucian assistants imposed a system of clothing regulation on the court and society in order to create a hierarchical power structure. As an important aspect of Chinese civilization, the clothing system functioned to form a social hierarchy, to regulate people’s activities, to harmonize the relations among the people, and finally to make a stable society under the close control of the state. The state control in the Ming remained effective until the reigns of Hongzhi (1488–1506) and Zhengde (1506–1521), when commercialization released people’s consumption desires and economic dynamics and caused deregulation of the Ming clothing system, which eventually undermined the state authority.     

In the Circulation Sphere of the Biomolecular Age: Economics and Gender Matter**

This contribution draws attention to the circulation of materialities and persons as a central feature in the constitution of experimental cultures. The protein and ribosome research at the Max Planck Society (MPG)—with a main focus on the research conducted by Brigitte Wittmann-Liebold at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics—serves as an example to highlight some of the central conditions that determined the material circulation in molecular biology: the very organizational framework of gender and economics. In doing so, this contribution argues for a historical narrative that stresses the conditions facilitating the circulation of technologies, materials, and personnel. Histories of this kind contribute to an integrated view of the scientific, technological, social, political, economic, and cultural specificities of experimental cultures.     

旅游景观形成与演变机制的符号学解释——兼议符号学视角下的旅游城市化与旅游商业化现象

旅游景观形成与演变机制的研究对于旅游景观的建设与保护具有重要意义。本文借助于符号学的相关理论,对旅游景观的形成与演变机制进行分析,并指出:在旅游景观形成与演变过程中,基于旅游景观意义的博弈,旅游文化主体不仅把自在景观符号作为一个整体加以改造而形成旅游景观符号的"能指",而且在此基础上赋予它的新的文化内涵,形成旅游景观符号的"所指",从而完成旅游景观的符号化过程。旅游城市化和旅游商业化现象是这一过程中的必然产物,是基于文化主体意义博弈的旅游景观符号的现代化重构。     

黄宗智中国小农“三幅面孔”统一体说的误区

中国农民包括小农、大农、雇农三大类.黄宗智的中国小农"三幅面孔"统一体说,事实上是个随意拼凑的"创见".经营式农场主、雇农都不在小农范畴,"三幅面孔"只能和富农、自耕农、佃农相关.经营式农场主和雇农二者所构成的一种生产方式,根本就不能用来反映中国小农经济的内部结构以及受其影响小农经济所表现出来的某种状态.中国小农"三幅面孔"统一体说提出的目的,在很大程度上是为了把经营式农场主、富农、自耕农、佃农、雇农都被包含在小农范畴.由于和农业商品化联系最密切的是经营式农场主-雇农生产方式,所以考察农业商品化、世界经济、帝国主义等对中国小农经济的影响,就需要把经营式农场作为主要研究对象.     

浅谈当代中国电视剧的大众文化思潮

电视剧是一种非主流意识的大众文化形态。随着中国社会文明进程的演变,它已融入广大民众真实生动的生活中,成为社会生活不可或缺的一个重要内容,具有了更广阔的社会文化品格。     

前工业社会中的城市市场结构与市场导向的商业化

市场和商业化是中国和英格兰等许多前工业社会的常见现象 ,但在中国 ,农村市场结构和自给型商业化长期处于主导地位 ,没有像英格兰那样在中世纪晚期和现代早期转变为城市市场结构和市场导向的商业化。市场结构的性质对两国早期现代化过程中商业化的发展路径 ,提供了截然不同的体制性角色     

新型城镇化背景下文化古镇旅游商业化用地空间格局演化——以同里为例

人地关系一直是旅游地理学研究的核心科学问题,本文探讨了同里旅游商业化用地格局演化的特征,揭示了其格局演化的驱动机制。结果表明:1同里旅游商业化先后经历了三个阶段,用地规模呈现逐步增加的态势,并呈现从核心向四周扩散的特征,用地格局整体紧凑度不高;2旅游用地空间扩展以SWW、SE、SSE、E为主导方向,拓展强度呈增大态势;3针对同里旅游商业化用地格局演变的驱动机制剖析表明,经济利益、农户行为转变、市场发展需求、级差地租及政府行为的综合驱动导致了其用地格局的空间演化。     

Commercializing academic knowledge and reputation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: photography and beyond

Abstract

This article argues that Hermann Vogel (1834–1898), the head of the photochemical laboratory of the Technische Hochschule Berlin-Charlottenburg, was not exceptional in pursuing business undertakings throughout his academic career. After highlighting the involvement of higher education employees of various disciplines and institutions in the photographic industry as consultants, patentees, and entrepreneurs, I more closely examine the commercial activities of Vogel and those of Adolf Miethe (1862–1927), Vogel’s successor in Berlin. This analysis points to a notable continuity through time. It shows that these scientists’ decades-long engagement in commercial work was not materially affected by (1) their salary levels, (2) the emergence of industrial research in the photographic and optical industries, and (3) changes in the amount of government funding for scientific research. In addition, it reveals that the Prussian education ministry maintained a strong focus on reputational risks in handling complaints concerning commercial activities of these academics.