Shakin' it for the Man?
Does BREI want to explain biotech (or sell it)?
By Alex De Grand

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Imagine shopping for a computer, as lost as a Gilligan's Island cast-away in the techno-jargon jungle when suddenly, out from behind that row of discounted Playstations, comes Bill Gates!

Gates says computers are such an important part of the world today, he'd hate to see someone make the wrong purchase. In soothing words, Gates' explanations make technology seem less of a mega-byte in the ass.

But, wait! Can Gates be trusted? Even when he isn't pushing his very own product, he has a stake in seeing the overall industry do well.

On the other hand, Gates sure knows a hell of a lot more than that goofy kid who transferred in from housewares last week.

In a similar way, consumers might scratch their heads when a group of researchers at the University of Kentucky offer to explain biotechnology to the masses. Their webpage, found at www.ca.uky.edu/brei/ was launched earlier this month.

In a world that has seen tomatoes modified with fish DNA, the need for such an educational resource is obvious.

"It's certainly been said the public is being handed a new technology without being educated [about it]," said Dr. David Hildebrand, co-chair of the project known as the Biotechnology Research and Education Initiative (BREI).

But while their credentials seem more than up to the task, a number of these scientists do the research that goes into advancing biotech and occasionally receive grants from those corporations selling the finished products. Can they be trusted?

"Some committee members have received funding from biotech industries," Hildebrand acknowledged. "But most have not... For those who have, I'd be pretty confident none would say what the companies want them to say."

Hildebrand emphasized BREI is only intended to help people learn more about the science so they can make up their own minds. It's not for selling the technology, he said.

And of all the possible sources of information, it's the contention of BREI co-chair Valerie Vantreese, that universities are probably more trusted than other sources such as industry, grassroots organizations or the government.

But there is a growing concern the university's ivory tower might have become a little less lily-white.

During Green Party presidential candidate and consumer-rights czar Ralph Nader's visit to UK in April, some of his biggest applause came when he opened fire on the school's relationship to industry.

"Corporations like Nike have their hooks in this university," Nader declared.

And while the marriage of commercial interests and collegiate athletics is well-known, there are similar trends occurring in academics.

The Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 allowed universities to patent the results of federally-funded research.

That law, in addition to other changes allowing patents on living organisms, has radically altered the nature of university research, according to Gabriela Flora, a program associate in agricultural biotechnology for the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy based in Minneapolis, Minn.

Lots of information that previously would be public domain is now patented, she said. The trend runs counter to the scientific principle of free inquiry and sharing of information.

"Talking to academics in research, they say professional meetings are much less informative than they used to be," Flora stated.

One of the most infamous incidents illustrating Flora's point can be found at the University of California at Berkeley.

That school signed a deal in 1998 with Novartis, a Swiss pharmaceutical company that also produces genetically-engineered crops. Under the agreement, the company gives the school's department of plant and microbial biology $25 million for basic research in exchange for the first right to negotiate licenses on about a third of the department's discoveries. Those rights extend not just to discoveries funded by Novartis but also by state and federal sources.

Novartis was also granted two of the five seats on the department's research committee that determines how the money is spent.

Flora argued, less extreme than the Berkeley deal is the quiet influence of private money directing resources toward large agribusiness interests at the expense of smaller projects. Alternatives to biotechnology are likely to be squeezed out, she said.

Yet, it is unfair to say all university scientists are working hand-in-hand with the corporations making grants to their schools, Hildebrand said. He noted tobacco companies paid schools a lot for the research into their product, research that ultimately showed how smoking is dangerous.

Hildebrand also argued people shouldn't be so hasty to disqualify scientists because they received private grants in the past.

In the late 1970s and 80s, Hildebrand said, the British government told universities research that couldn't attract support from the private sector was certainly not worth the continuing public expenditure.

But years later, Hildebrand continued, when the British looked to assemble panels for studying food safety issues, it found itself in a bind. Most of the best scientists to serve on these panels had received industry money, as ordered by the government, and critics objected to them as being "compromised."

Dr. Scott Smith, the assistant dean for research in UK's College of Agriculture, estimated the ag college receives about $7 million a year in grants and about 20 percent of them are from private industry. Government and commodity groups are among the other grantmakers.

Hildebrand said UK has rules governing the kind of private money it accepts. Grants have to fit the mission of the school.

Further, Hildebrand said, except during the short period of time leading up to a patent, UK makes its research public.

Alex De Grand can be reached at 225-4889 (ext. 232) or adegrand@acemagazine.com.