Quotes About Biotechnology

More important is the fact that embryonic stem cell research could lead to new treatments and cures for the many Americans afflicted with life-threatening and debilitating diseases.

The position I took at the time was that we hadn't really examined any of the potential environmental consequences of introducing genetically modified organisms.

What's different here is that we have now technologies that allow these life science companies to bypass classical breeding. That's what makes it both powerful and exciting.

They're now turning those seeds into intellectual property, so they have a virtual lock on the seeds upon which we all depend for our food and survival.

threat, as well as a trillion-dollar biotechnology industry that keeps coming up with new ways to scare us.

If you think about brewing, it is biotechnology. And I would say that I was a technologist at heart. So whether I... fermented beer or whether I fermented enzymes, the base technology was the same.

We must address, individually and collectively, moral and ethical issues raised by cutting-edge research in artificial intelligence and biotechnology, which will enable significant life extension, designer babies, and memory extraction.

In principle. what is done is to take the nucleus out of a cell with a very fine micro-pipette or needle and introduce it into an egg. That had been done with amphibians a long time ago, and then there was a long pause of many years before people were clever enough to make that work in the sheep.

There are enzymes called restriction enzymes that actually digest DNA.

I have aging as a disease.

I think science has begun to demonstrate that aging is a disease. If it is, it can be cured.

What's different here is that we have now technologies that allow these life science companies to bypass classical breeding. That's what makes it both powerful and exciting.

Biology is the most powerful technology ever created. DNA is software, protein are hardware, cells are factories.

So someday in the near future hopefully rather than having a foot or a leg amputated we'll just give you an injection of the cells and restore the blood flow. We've also created entire tubes of red blood cells from scratch in the laboratory. So there are a lot of exciting things in the pipeline.

In fact when you combine stem cell technology with the technology known as tissue engineering you can actually grow up entire organs, so as you suggest that sometime in the future you get in an auto accident and lose your kidney, we'd simply take a few skin cells and grow you up a new kidney. In fact this has already been done.

With CRISPR/CAS9, any gene whose sequence is known can be removed, replaced, turned on, or turned off, and all this can be done in the equivalent of someone's garage.

New molecular methods that add or modify genes can protect plants from diseases and pests and improve crops in ways that are both more environmentally benign and beyond the capability of older methods.

Patenting tends to get people's juices flowing when you put the word 'gene' and the word 'patent' in the same sentence. And understandably so. This is stuff we're carrying around - all of us - inside all of our cells. Should somebody be able to lay claim to it?

Cell-based meat, or 'clean' meat - real meat produced in labs - has not become a commercial product yet. But analysts expect it to hit the shelves in 2021 or soon thereafter, and start-ups in this space, such as Memphis Meats, have raised tens of millions of dollars.

A permanent base on Mars would have a number of advantages beyond being a bonanza for planetary science and geology. If, as some evidence suggests, exotic micro-organisms have arisen independently of terrestrial life, studying them could revolutionise biology, medicine and biotechnology.

I consider this tribalism the biggest problem of our time. I think it could undo millennia of movement toward global integration, unravel the social web just when technology has brought the prospect of a cohesive planetary community within reach. Given that the world is still loaded with nuclear weapons and that biotechnology is opening a Pandora's box of new weaponry, you can imagine our tribalistic impulses ushering in a truly dark age.

Stem cell research must be carried out in an ethical manner in a way that respects the sanctity of human life.

Far from being a homogenous "Big Science," biotechnology is highly diversified and heterogeneous. "The" human genome is not a single database, but a cluster of semi-autonomous databases housed at universities, biotech companies, and independent research institutes. In fact, because any computer user can, if he or she wishes, download the entire genome, "the" human genome is probably more distributed than we can guess. From: "Open source DNA and Bioinformatic Bodies" by Eugene Thacker

Shinya Yamanaka's work has involved mice and human cells, and advances the prospect of providing new cells or body parts for patients.