Biotech breakout

  • Thursday, December 27, 2001 9:00pm
  • Business

Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO — At the dawn of the new millennium, biotechnology finally began to matter to people outside laboratories and brokerage houses.

Scientist began deciphering the human genome in 2001, human embryos were cloned and gene research gained new urgency as microbiologists joined the battle against a suddenly very real danger — bioterrorism.

In 2002, scientists hope to turn their understanding of how genes work into drugs, extract human embryonic stem cells from cloned embryos and develop powerful vaccines against germ warfare.

On the biotech business front, analysts predict massive consolidation next year, ushered in by Amgen Inc.’s proposed $16 billion acquisition of rival Immunex Corp. of Seattle.

Meanwhile, the bioterrorism threat has placed microbiologists on center stage.

In addition to helping try to track down whomever was behind the killing of five Americans with anthrax, microbiologists are being called on to create germ warfare detectors, rapidly diagnose attacks and create vaccines and drugs.

"Biotechnology is exercising its muscle as it grows into young adulthood," said Carl Feldbaum, president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization. "We are seeing a whole new relationship between the biotech industry and the Department of Defense."

Nobody knows this better than Paul Keim a professor at Northern Arizona University.

In May, Keim and his students had quickly solved the mystery of why prairie dogs were dying en masse in northern Arizona.

Using DNA "fingerprinting" techniques, the team diagnosed bubonic plague in a matter of hours.

Federal officials have called on Keim’s detective skills to try to identify the source of the anthrax attacks.

But it’s not just anthrax that worries the nation.

Microbiologists are being asked to create vaccines that can combat a number of pathogens including small pox, Bubonic plague and Ebola.

"Germ warfare has garnered all the recent attention," said Jeremy Rifkin, a prominent anti-biotech activist. "But the biggest story in biotechnology is human cloning."

On the Sunday after Thanksgiving, Advanced Cell Technology chief executive Michael West announced that his company had succeeded in cloning a human embryo.

None of the cloned embryos grew large enough to generate any stem cells. But the process did renew the fierce debate over human embryonic stem cells, which had been overshadowed by bioterrorism fears after Sept. 11.

"We are using design principals to architect our destiny," Rifkin said. "We are losing the spontaneity of creating life."

Advanced Cell is not interested in creating cloned humans, West maintains. He says its ultimate goal is "therapeutic cloning," creating stem cells that can be grown into custom medical treatments, using embryos cloned from patients’ own cells.

Therapeutic cloning holds great promise as a disease cure, scientists say, although such customized solutions may be prohibitively expensive.

Stem cells, created in the first days of pregnancy, later sprout into the more than 200 different cells that make up the human body. Scientists hope to someday manipulate stem cells into adult cells of their choosing.

Few scientists doubt the therapeutic promise of stem cells, but the controversy over their source — human embryos — could shut down certain avenues of research in the coming year — or at least drive it overseas.

President Bush, Pope John Paul II and a host of others were quick to condemn West’s cloning announcement. Many see West’s work as a slippery slope that will lead to selective breeding of the human race.

"I think this is a watershed event in history," Rifkin said. "It’s another step toward a eugenics society."

Copyright ©2001 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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