The Double Helix and the Research Triangle

Abstract

I welcome the opportunity to share with you some of the questions that have been raised in the Congress by the increasing commercial investments in biotechnology at universities. Although closer cooperation between universities and private companies is seen generally in Congress as desirable, particularly as a means of shortening the time between the discovery and the commercialization of a product, arrangements involving biotechnology research have received special attention because of the uniqueness and power associated with genetic engineering. Before discussing some of the concerns that have been voiced, I would like to briefly describe why biotechnology research is seen as needing to be more sensitively handled than other areas of research have been in the past.