SAB NewsSAB Director Attends Virginia Biotechnology SummitPosted 10/18/2002 Nanotechnology and Discovery Science were major scientific themes at this year’s annual Virginia Biotechnology Summit in McLean, Virginia. Dr. Tamara Zemlo, Director of The Science Advisory Board, attended the conference, which featured special presentations by Dr. John Fenn (this year’s Nobel Prize winner in chemistry for his work on electrospray ionization and mass spectrometry), Dr. Kary Mullis (the 1993 recipient of the Nobel Prize for his invention of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in DNA-based chemistry), and Dr. Francis Collins (the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute). “There is intense collaboration between academia and industry in the area of nanotechnology,” observes Dr. Zemlo, “which has resulted in some exciting breakthroughs in tissue engineering.” These include electrospinning as a platform for various medical applications. By spinning collagen that has the capacity for self-assembly, replenishment of the extracellular matrix will eventually be possible. In addition to developing supporting biostructures, there is a major nanotechnology emphasis on sensors, gene therapy and drug delivery. Discovery Science is fundamentally challenging how traditional, hypothesis-driven scientific inquiry is conducted. It depends on the integration of computational tools to store, model and disseminate large volumes of information and is at the foundation of the “omics” revolution (i.e., genomics, functional genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, pharmacogenomics, etc.). Discovery Science is a fundamental part of systems biology, which involves the study of components of a biological system both before and after chemical or genetic perturbation. While being more readily adopted by industry, academia is also beginning to integrate discovery science into its research programs, though it will be through private-public partnerships—which will offset its high cost— that this approach will be most effective. |
|
