The RSA (The Renaissance Society of America) recently published a video and audio recording of Stephen and Hilary Rose debating ‘The Rise of the Biotechnosciences’.

The speakers discuss the promises and flaws in the biosciences, issues with biobanks and political issues that underlie research and development.

Stephen Rose argues that the nature of science has changed, with academic institutions ever more tied to commercial interests, and the move from winning a Nobel prize to making money as a goal.

The speakers jointly discuss the rational of gene banks, describing an underlying change in philosophy from the collective towards individualism and the related personalized medicine. They argue that the entire feasibility of personalized medicine should be debated, as current production models would not allow pharmaceutical companies to make a profit on individualized products, as their profits come from so called “super drugs” that work on mass and are therefore prescribed to millions of people.

Hilary goes on to explain the failings of both the Iceland and UK biobank projects, comparing the two approaches adopted and related sampling and representation problems (Iceland is too small and cohesive, the UK too broad and diverse).

Both banks are not financially viable due to these problems, and the speakers argue that while genomics has moved on the researchers are still using old analysis techniques and approaches. Their conclusion is however that the biological assumptions that the projects were built upon were naive, and that the genomics is a far more complex business that they had planned for.

The audio is unedited and contains questions from the public, while the video only offers highlights of the speakers’ arguments.

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(photo: Biotech Pharmacy – Biotech for everyone! by cesarharada.com from Flickr)