"The challenge of biotechnology"

Date:
[c. 1980]
Reference:
PP/CRI/H/6/17
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: "The challenge of biotechnology". Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the challenge of biotechnology i'VguÄ-i' Ct¿ de- My topic is the impact of biological research on our ideas and on our society. I have stressed biotechnology because I want to deal especially with the possible effects of biological research. In the broadest sense the manipulation of biological organisms is almost as old as man himself. Man's early efforts — the making of wine, cheese and bread, the domestication and breeding of plants and animals — were almost entirely empirical. What has transformed the subject has been the discoveries of modern science and in particular the rapid development of molecular biology, based on our deep understanding of the physics and chemistry of mild conditions. In the last few years this understanding has led to a series of new and powerful techniques which are likely to transform the whole of biological research. To understand these developments we must grasp, if only in outline, the scientific roots of biology. Each chemical reaction in a cell is controlled by a particular enzyme. Each enzyme is a member of the protein family. Each protein consists of one or more polypeptide chain(s) which have folded themselves up to form the precise 3D structure needed to carry out the required catalytic activity. Each polypeptide chain is put together from a set of twenty units — called amino acids — joined end-to-end to form that particular polypeptide chain. To obtain the correct protein the cell must assemble these amino acids in the correct