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1st
EMBL/EMBO Joint Conference 2000 |
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Session
IV |
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| Biotechnology, bio-industry, bio-business |
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Charles Kurland
[Chair], BMC, Sweden and Chris Leaver, Oxford
University, UK
There has been a marked change in the attitudes of governments and
politicians in Western Europe to the conduct of research since the
collapse of the Soviet Union. Whether the demise of the USSR is the
reason for this change in priorities is debatable, but the shift in
attitudes emerged most perceptibly in the early 1990s. Science is
now valued in political circles as a means for the accumulation of
wealth, period! The ambition to understand our world is now considered
a naive expression of "mere curiosity". Government policies in general
and EU policy in particular seem to be based on the premise that it
is far better to develop a new product-concept than to solve a problem.
That is to say Science has been "globalized".
There is a vast array of applications of science that are useful
but not perceived as profitable. An obvious example is the provision
of new therapies for diseases prevalent in economically underdeveloped
populations. Of course, that perception may change a bit when TB
resistant to antibiotics gains a foothold in Western Europe. Likewise,
problems whose solution will provide applications and products ten
or more years down the road are invisible to politicians and the
bookkeepers of industry. So, their sensible budget reductions will
continue until stagnation is a fact. Then of course the hue and
cry will be to get our scientists working again!
Biography
Charles Kurland received his PhD in Biochemistry from Harvard University
in 1961, and did postdoctoral work at the Microbiology Institute
of the University of Copenhagen. Since 1971, he has been a Professor
of Molecular Biology at Uppsala University, Sweden.
Professor Kurland has been a member of the European Molecular Biology
Organization since 1994, and has represented Sweden on the Councils
of both the EMBC and the EMBL [1989-1992]. He has been chairman
of several national councils and committees, and is a member of
the Royal Science Society, Uppsala, the Royal Academy of Sciences,
Stockholm, the Royal Academy of Sciences, Copenhagen, the Estonian
Academy of Science, Tallinn, and the Royal Physiographical Society,
Lund.
Professor Kurland has published more than 170 scientific papers,
among them a series of signal papers on the biochemistry and biophysics
of the ribosome. His prominence in this field was witnessed by his
contribution to the authoritative text The Ribosome1. Kurland's
study of the E. coli ribosome is, however, but part of a career
devoted to the molecular biology of bacteria, the most recent avenues
of which have led him to study the evolution of endoparasitic bacteria
and cellular organelles.
Professor Kurland continues to be an enthusiastic promoter of molecular
biology, whilst taking a keen interest in the communication of science
to the public. As well as chairing the EMBO committee on Science
and Society, he co-wrote the EMBO statement on genetically modified
organisms and the public, which was published in February this year,
and which is the starting point for the EMBO on-line discussion
forum on GMOs. |
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