Sponsored by the Office for History of Science and Technology (UC Berkeley)
And the History of Health Sciences Program (UCSF)
Sally Smith Hughes
The Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley
-
Genes, Genentech, and the Business of Biotechnology
The rise of commercial biotechnology has been portrayed as a foreordained development springing from breakthroughs in molecular biology in the 1960s and the invention of recombinant DNA technology in the early 1970s. This talk aims to show that the commercialization of genetic engineering was problematic and risk-laden at every turn—technologically, financially, politically, and commercially. It will describe the decision to found Genentech in 1976, the first company to commercialize recombinant DNA technology, and the problems its founders—the former venture capitalist Robert Swanson and the UCSF professor Herbert Boyer—encountered internally as well as in a political environment hostile to the very technology they sought to industrialize. Based on a book in progress using written and oral sources, the talk provides an opportunity for audience input on content, direction, emphasis, and historiography.
4:00PM
Monday, January 28, 2008
140 Barrows Hall
UC Berkeley
Office for History of Science and Technology, 543 Stephens Hall #2350
University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-2350
tel: (510) 642-4581, e-mail: ohst@berkeley.edu
