Bioscience, Bioinnovations, and Bioethics

Abstract

Biosciences and their applications, which we call biotechnology, have affected human society in many ways. Great hopes have been set on future biotechnology. The future depends on three key issues. First, we need good science. Recent developments in biosciences have surprised us in many ways. I shall explain in this article how. Secondly, we need structured innovation systems in order to commercialize our discoveries. Europe is slow in this respect compared to our Japanese and American competitors and may lose in the competition. I shall describe the Finnish innovation chain using the rewarded Otaniemi model as an example of how commercialization can be done in a systematic way. Thirdly, we need norms to guide what to do and where to go. Bioethics is probably the most neglected of the three key issues. With modern biotechnology we are able to do things that should worry every citizen, but the ethical discussion has been largely neglected or the discussion in our pluralistic society is leading nowhere. I shall finally discuss these problems from a historical perspective.

Dedicated to Elisabeth Fiechter, the late wife of Professor Fiechter