Biotechnology today and tomorrow Fashions come and go in science and technology as in other fields of human cndcavour. Of late. biotechnology has been doubly in vogue. On the one hand it was to revolutionize manufac- turing industry and create a new era of prosperity: on the other, it was a genie to be kept firmly in its bottle for fear that it would unleash monsters capable of destroying mankind. In the course of time, as the dust settled and the im- plications became clearer. a more ba- lanced view began to emerge and it is now po\sihle to form a reasoned judg- ment of both the promise and the limitations of biotechnology. A suc- cinct evaluation of present achievement and a prediction of future develop- ments has lately appeared under the imprint of the C‘ommittee of Scientific and Technological Policy of the Orga- nlxation for Economic Co-operation and I~c\~clo(,mcnt. ’ The <)E.<‘U is a most appropriate institution for prepar- ing a review of this kind. Formally established in 1960, it comprises some two dozen countries of the western world-including Australia. New Zea- land. and Japan. Its main objectives arc to promote the highest sustainable economic growth and employment within member countries: to assist such economic gl-owth in non-member coun- tries; and multilaterally to promote the expansion of world trade. It rightly recognizes biotechnology as a major facto1 in the achievement of these objcctivcs. It recognizes. too, that biotechnology is not only inter-disciplin- ary but international. and member state\ must therefore coordinate their national plans.

The Repor-t begin\ c)n a note of seeming pedantry-a formal definition of what biotechnology comprises. This is in fact sensible and doubly useful. Firstly. it IS necessary when comparing budgetary and other statistics and asscs\ing results. Secondly, as formu- lated it emphasises that genetic en- gineering. which has attracted by far the most popular- interest and concern, is only a small part of biotechnology. The Report defines biotechnology as ‘the application of scientific and en- gineering principles to the processing of materials by biological agents to provtde goods and selvices‘. This is a gcncrous dcfnition. but it largely ex- cludes the tl-aditional agricultural prac- tici * c,t crop production an<1 ;lnim;ll hu\‘sandry. except insofar as they pro- duct raw materials. On the other hand. biotechnology may have far-reaching effect\ on agriculture by providing im- proved varieties of crops and animals by new technique\. There is, for exam- ple. great current interest in the de-

’ Bull, Alan T.. Holt, Geoffrey, and Lilly, Malcolm D. ‘Biotechnology: International Trends and Perspectives’. OECD. Paris,

velopment of nitrogen-fixing cereals which would curtail the constantly in- creasing demand for expensive synthe- tic nitrogenous fertilizers. Services is, of course. a very broad term but, in the present context, it largely means the purification of water and the manage- ment of waste.

The underlying note of the Report is cautionary. It encourages long-term ex- pectations but firmly and clearly points out constraints that must necessarily limit the rate of progress: it emphasises that there is a world of difference between the formulation of projects and their translation into reality. Among the most important of these constraints is the availability of people with the necessary training. It is esti- mated that in Britain alone some 1000 additional graduates and 4000 support staff will be needed in this field over the next ten yciirs. Another con- straint is the geographical availability of the necessary biomass as a substrate: availability in Europe, for example, could come nowhere near meeting the raw material needs of the chemical industry or providing significant amounts of biofuel. Utilization of lig- nocellulose is a major problem. Even where biomass is available, or could be made available, there can be undesired repercussions. For example in Kenya, which has sought to develop a biofuel policy along the lines of that of Brazil, the switching of 400 000 hectares of land to fuel-crop production has in- creased the need for food imports. Rioni;t4\ ntill,5ltlon c:in 111 itself Icad to serious waste tlispohal problems. hincc the end~pro(lucl is normally a very dilute and potcnti;illy putrescent solution. <‘onverscly. in 5,imc parts of the wctl-Id water is so scarce and cxpcnsivc that h~olog~cal processes are not practicable.

While the Report ik generally optimi- \tlc about an onward and upward trend. it \cc$ the most promising tield of future development in the production of high value added products, especial- ly medicinals. Even here, however, conventional methods may in some instances prove as satisfactory as ones based on biotechnology. Thus the che- mical conversion of porcine insulin to human inrulin may prove as effective as novel processes based on recom- binant DNA methods.

The interests of academic rcscarch and industrial application may he in conflict. though the Report draws attention to increasing co-operation be- tween the universities and industry. Thus. for the purposes of pure research E‘.co/i has proved exceptionally conve- nient, and probably more is known about its life style than that of any other micro-organism-rather as gene- tic research has led to an enormous accumulation of knowledge about the -

Much more attention needs to he directed to other micro-organisms- such as the nitrogen-fixing Rhizo- bium-and to their physiology, a sub- ject to which rather little attention has been directed outside Japan.

In some processes based on enzymes it is economic to u%;e the enLyme once and discard it, but in others practicability depends on ability to use the enzyme several times over. There is particular interest. therefore in immobilized biocatalysts. in which the enzyme is bound to a solid support in the form of particles. membranes. etc. The nature of the base greatly affects the life of the catalyst, and much research needs to be done in this field. Thus in aspartic acid production tie half-life of the biocatalyst can be Increased from 150 to 62X changing the support from days by polyacrylamide to carrageenan.

The Report concludes with a brief comment on the important subject of patents in the field of biotechnology. It is surely very significant that between 1977 and 1981 some 2400 patents were lodged of which 60 per cent originated in Japan. Here, clearly, existing patent laws-which have evolved largely to protect inventions with a physical or chemical basis-will need substantial revision if manufacturers are to secure sufficient protection to justify massive investment in research and develop- ment. The core ot the patent may bc a unique strain of a pa1 titular mici-o-organism, to define which it may be necessary to lodge a cnlture with some internationally recog- nized type culture collection. Stringent safeguards must be introduced to pre- vent a competitor- obtaining a sub- culture before a patent has been granted. This introduces legal niceties about private ownership of living organisms. which will take a long time to resolve. Such problems are identified and authoritatively reviewed in another recent publication’. In the context ot academic-industrial liaison there are problems about the ownership of pa- tents. In the United States, for exam- ple, universities can now retain patent rights resulting from federally sup- ported research. This raises the possi- bility of conflict between commercial interests and traditional academic free-

.dom to publish. This critical analysis of the present

state of the art in biotechnology, and review of the many factors that will determine future progress, deserves to be widely read. It is of interest not only to those directly concerned but also to the many others who will have to determine the policies of their govcrn- ments.

* R. S. Crespi, ‘Patenting in the Biological Sciences’. Wiley, Chichester. 1982. fl6.00.