| EDITORIAL EJB ELECTRONIC JOURNAL OF BIOTECHNOLOGY ....MOVING FROM SCIENCE TO DEVELOPMENT... |
| International Biotechnology:
The practice of biotechnology varies worldwide in style, scale and substance. Moreover, the practice of the traditional and modern biotechnologies reveals shared histories with specific peoples and cultures. The various types of biotechnology encountered in different regions vary, in range, from the traditional panary and wine fermentations to the bio-industrial production of amino acids and antibiotics, and more recently, to the modern-day development of bio-pharmaceuticals and gene pharming. The industrialized countries, engaged in frontier-area research in the agricultural, environmental, legal and socio-ethical aspects of biotechnology, are encountered at one end of the global spectrum of biotechnology. At the other end of the arc are to be found the group of the least developed and small island countries. These economically disadvantaged countries draw upon traditional knowledge to manage and preserve their environments and to meet, to the extent possible, the food and health requirements of their peoples. Between these two groups four other broad clusters of countries occur. These are the arid land developing countries that are endowed with a natural resource of high export significance ---oil; the developing countries that are in transition to development and market-oriented economies; the advancing developing countries that are characterized with proven scientific infrastructure, peer-reviewed research and outputs such as technical publications, patents, and established protocols of governance and policy in private and public sector biotech; and the advanced developing countries generally accepted worldwide as the newly industrialized countries, and which have proven bioindustrial capability and new market economies. Biotechnology, in and amongst these groups, is the common thread that holds together the skeins of their participation in the fabric of regional and international co-operation in research in the life sciences that focuses on improving the quality of life of all living systems, and seeding economic and technological development. The promise of biotechnology is inherent in its potential use in combating world hunger; in eradicating poverty; in curbing the spread of communicable and infectious diseases; in managing the environment; in conserving human resources; and in sustaining development. However, in recent years, the threat of biowarfare, bioterrorism and fears concerning the use of genetically modified food are some of the issues that point to a dark side of biotechnology. Hence the need for diplomatic considerations and policy initiatives in counteracting the misuse of biotechnological research. Illegal and unethical use of pathogenic organisms in anticrop warfare, biological warfare, and bioterrorism tend to put biotechnology in the dock in the public mind, and thus minimize its numerous beneficial applications for human welfare. The debate concerning GMOS and GM foods continues to be emotional and fierce notwithstanding that "experts say that the practice of agricultural biotechnology is a critical element in developing nations and in providing food for a growing population". The outbreak of war, in the mid-1990s, between two neighboring countries in the Horn of Africa, as conveyed in a press story, was due to the bite of a mosquito. Regarding HIV/AIDS, a number of countries around the globe have introduced HIV guidelines and testing requirements for entry and acquisition of long-term residency permits. Other countries have declared HIV/AIDS as a threat to national security. Biotechnology like information technology permeates through all cultures and disciplines. It reflects a confluence of the fundamental and engineering sciences with scope for impact-making research. Truly today, "writing computer programs and revealing genetic codes have replaced the search for gold, the conquest of land and the command of machinery as the path to economic power". In such a climate that fuels technical advancement, diplomacy and statesmanship are necessary to sound the alarms of ethical intervention, to provide for economic aspiration, and to promote and fund scientific inspiration (Box 1). The statesmanship of scientists and their contributions to the emergence and growth of diplomacy and international co-operation in biotechnology has been vividly captured in the well-known classics --- The Microbe Hunters; Three Centuries of Microbiology; The Art of Scientific Investigation, and more recently in the Eighth Day of Creation. Raymond B. Fosdick, former Undersecretary of the League of Nations, and President of the Rockefeller Foundation captured the spirit of sharing the benefits of biotechnology and perhaps of UN and other international programs yet to come in his remarks made in 1940, namely: "An American soldier wounded on a battlefield in the Far East owes his life to the Japanese scientist Shibasaburo Kitasato who isolated the bacillus of tetanus; a Russian soldier saved by a blood transfusion is indebted to Karl Landsteiner, an Austrian. A German soldier is shielded from typhoid fever with the help of a Russian, Elie Metchnikoff. A Dutch marine in the East Indies is protected from malaria because of the experiments of an Italian, Giovanni Grassi. While a British aviator in North Africa escapes death from a surgical infection because of a French man, Louis Pasteur. In peace as in war, we are all of us beneficiaries of contributions to knowledge made by every nation in the world. Our children are guarded from diphtheria by what Japanese and a German did. They're protected from smallpox by an Englishman's work. They are saved from rabies because of a Frenchman and are cured of pellagra through the research of an Austrian. From birth to death they are surrounded by an invisible host, the spirits of men who never thought in terms of flags or boundaries and who never served a lesser loyalty than the welfare of mankind. The best that any individual or group has produced anywhere in the world has always been to serve the race of man regardless of nation or color." These words, true then, hold true today when one analyses the wide range of beneficial applications of biotech practice around the globe. The promise and potential of biotechnology have always beckoned. Julian Huxley foresaw the importance of the science of biotechnology in 1936, a decade before he became the Director- General of UNESCO. Biotechnology, since the release of the (Lord Alfred) Spinks at the start of the 1980s biotechnology has been high on the international agenda of international concerns and co-operation. Attention has been given to the founding of intergovernmental regional and international centers of excellence and of networks specializing in molecular biology, genetic engineering and the rational use of microbial resources. This is natural on account of the global spread, practice and impact of biotechnology in the cultural, scientific, social and environmental spheres of human activity. The "banana wars" in trade and the implantation of GM crops in Europe have tended to cloud if not strain transatlantic relationships. Globally, millions have benefited from approved biotechnological food and health products, and vaccines. Agricultural biotechnology has acquired a new face on account of innovative genetic engineering, which has reduced the need for and dependence on petroleum-derived products. Management of the environment is being secured in the developed and developing worlds through bioremediation, and, through the development and use of clean and green energy technologies. Notwithstanding the indisputable fact that research in the frontier areas of high-tech biotech research is being carried out in the technically-advanced countries, it is an accepted and encouraging fact that the latent biotech potential and promise in several developing countries, worldwide, is being tapped and being converted into reality. Contract research with numerous biotech ventures based in the industrialized countries indicates that investment in capacity building is yielding the much-needed cadres of skilled manpower in several regions of the developing world. Biotechnology has become an employer on the world scene with some millions of jobs having been created. The availability and application of political statesmanship contribute to sustainability of the participation of countries desiring international co-operation in biotechnology worldwide. Diplomatic commitment, insight, and at times policy, draw upon the rich sources of several diverse cultures to help articulate biotechnological governance for the benefit of all countries. The interaction between biotech, diplomacy and statesmanship involves a mix of different stakeholders as has been evident from a number of international meetings dealing with international and regional policy and governance of biotech issues ranging from biodiversity, intellectual property rights, trade in biotechnological products, to control of infectious disease, environmental management, food safety and biosecurity. Biodiplomacy and biopolitics are closely linked with the dialogue concerning biotechnology which can be gauged from the chorus of opinions and views coming from the private sector, governmental and non-governmental organizations, civil society organizations, public human welfare agencies and charities, vibrant scientific communities and a watchful press. Indeed, this intermix of cultural inputs, diplomatic viewpoints and biotech assets is necessary and relevant for the emergence of sound policy formulation, enunciation of international and national guidelines, legal governance, best practices, codes of conduct and their enactment. In the coming decades, as biotechnology takes its rightful place along with its other two concomitant impacting technologies, namely the information and nanotechnologies, there will always be a need for regional and international initiatives concerning policy, diplomacy and statesmanship. |
| Edgar
J. DaSilva, |