Galloping Biotechnology: a New Global Malady?

Extract

The articles by Alan Russell and Winfried Lang make an excellent but somewhat frightening combination. The former deals with the emerging international challenges of biotechnology and the latter with institutional or regime responses. This combination is sobering because the potential challenges to international stability outlined by Russell give the appearance of easily overwhelming the regulatory regimes suggested by Lang. Growth in biotechnology is part of a more general acceleration of scientific discovery and technological innovation which threatens to overwhelm existing regulatory mechanisms. Developments in biotechnology, however, are much more challenging than in other fields because of both the threat they pose to established values and because of the relative cheapness with which “designer weapons” could potentially be produced.