Here are some follow-up links from the 'Bioware for Dummies' post yesterday. Rob Carlson, who is mentioned in Paul Boutin's article, has an interesting blog where he has been following the spread of avian flu. His focus tends to be on security issues related to biotechnology. He has blogged recently on the global distribution of commercial DNA foundries, the worry here is that unscrupulous synthesis shops may not be screening sequences that customers are requesting (e.g. smallpox). Furthermore who is ordering all this DNA and why ? A second piece that I found interesting was on the dramatic increase in China's R&D budget (from US$12.4 billion in 1991 to $84.6 billion in 2003). The article also mentions the effects on PhD production:
The United States, Europe and Japan still produce many PhDs and create a host of jobs. But China is coming on strong. One wild card is whether Chinese PhDs will stay in the United States or return home. While China's PhD production in the United States has increased, PhDs by US white males has dropped from its peak of about 8,900 in 1994 to just over 7,000 in 2003.
Carlson is also working on a book, Learning to Fly: The past, present, and future of Biological Technology, the draft chapters are available on line.
Comments
Guns don't kill people
Ever since the early days of recombinant DNA technology, there has been speculation about home-brew science and its potential for good or evil. Yet for the most part, it hasn't happened. For good, because most people have better things to do than cloning in their shed and for bad, because it's impractical. Aseptic technique, batch culture, purification and production of easily-dispersable agent in large quantities are all very difficult for amateurs - there's more to it than just getting the DNA sequence. It's far easier to scare people using explosions, as we've seen.
Here's a plug for the Australian BioSecurity CRC, based in my new department. Despite the name their primary focus is not bioterrorism, rather disease outbreak and control, but their research has some relevance to the issue.