Tomeki
Cover of Private science

Private science

biotechnology and the rise of the molecular sciences

By Arnold Thackray

0 (0 Ratings)
0 Want to read0 Currently reading0 Have read

Publish Date

1998

Publisher

University of Pennsylvania Press

Language

eng

Pages

268

Description:

The word "Biotechnologie," used to describe technology based on biological raw materials, was coined in Hungary in 1917 by Karl Ereky, who met the threat of wartime famine by intensive fattening of huge numbers of pigs. Today, 250 public companies and perhaps another thousand privately held corporations are represented by the Biotechnology Industry Organization - all of them in the business of altering the genetic make-up of living things - and their activities have become the subject of vigorous debate among scholars, policymakers, and numerous other groups. Private Science is a contribution to that debate, focusing particularly on the relationships among corporations, universities, and national governments involved in biotechnological research. Essays in this collection examine the political and economic operations of the biotechnology industry and place those operations in historical context, tracing the history of both the institutional frameworks within which they developed and the ideas, attitudes, and language which shaped, and continue to shape, their development.