Lessons for Nanotechnology from Agricultural Biotechnology

  Jaydee Hanson, Director
  Human Genetics Policy for the International Center for Technology
  Assessment

A recent conference at Michigan State University examined what nanotechnology might learn from the experience of biotechnology. While the discussion was multi-facted, I came away from the conference with a greater appreciation of two aspects of the biotechnology debate that have great relevance for our discussion of nanotechnology. First, the biotechnology industry largely misunderstood the concerns of non-governmental organizations, and secondly, the efforts by the industry to avoid regulation may have actually limited the application of the technology.

Phil Macnaghten, a professor from Lancaster University in the United Kingdom, noted that: "The GM experience suggests that the deficit model of public skepticism or mistrust of science and technology is a fundamental handicap for institutions charged with the regulation and assessment of new technologies." He noted that the industry has had a long history of trying to communicate "expert" advice to an "ignorant" public and to its detriment has been loathe to acknowledge the unpredictable effects of its new technology. Other participants noted that the industry's (especially the agricultural industry's) efforts to portray genetically modified food as essentially the same as natural food) while, at the same time, patenting it as unique, brings into question the claims of the companies. Any critics of the technology are (still) painted by the industry as irresponsible actors. There has been little attempt by the agricultural biotechnology ("agri-bio") industry to hear what public participants may be trying to express.

While the Michigan State Conference focused mostly on the experiences of agri-bio, my own observations of the industry responses to critics of human biotechnology suggest that the experience of the critics of human biotechnology applications parallel those of the agri-bio activists. In both cases, the industry wrongly perceives that any criticism of an application of a biotechnology is a "Luddite" rejection of all science and technology. In the case of agri-bio, the industry branded its critics as anti-farmer green fanatics, and in the case of human biotechnology, the industry has branded its critics as pro-life anti-abortion zealots; in both instances, the "over-branding" of issues has led to situations where a significant part of the industry functions in an unregulated manner. Only those applications that fit easily into existing frameworks of regulation have been regulated. There is a testing regime for allergenic properties in food, so genetically modified foods are tested to see if they cause more allergies but not for other newly created aspects. Likewise, gene therapy and pharmaceuticals from the bio-medical industry are regulated at the national level in the United States, but not the in-vitro fertilization laboratories and not embryo research, unless it is funded by the United States government.

The biotechnology industry began with glowing promises that biotechnology would solve age old social problems. Genetically modified food would feed all of the world. Gene therapy would cure genetic diseases, even diseases like cancer that most of us acquire through genetic mutations in our lifetime. Twenty-five years later, there are millions of acres of genetically modified crops being grown, but there are more hungry people than ever. Twenty-five years after the first gene therapy experiments, thousands of people have been part of gene therapy trials, but there is a "cure" for only one rare disease. In both cases, scientific imagination (or hype) overstated what was possible. Aggressive resistance to regulation may have also undermined public confidence as public critics had to use media tools instead of regulatory processes to raise their concerns.

Nanotechnology has an opportunity to develop differently, but it may already be off on the wrong track. Like biotechnology, nanotechnology is defining its scope as broadly as possible. By defining its industry in terms of a particular scale, instead of a set of products, nanotechnology stretches across every sphere of public and industrial life, from the military to cosmetics. Its public proponents are following the hype-over-nuance approach typified by the biotechnology industry. A recent example is the nanotechnology funding announcements by the National Cancer Institute. The National Cancer Institute, which recently announced two waves of funding for nanotech training and research, sees nanotechnology as vital to its stated goal of "eliminating suffering and death from cancer by 2015."¹ Much important research is being done, but the researchers need to avoid over-promising.

Greg Downing, director of the Office of Technology and Industrial Relations at the National Cancer Institute, says that: "These technologies have the potential to overcome challenges we can't overcome now." The technologies are profound, but, for the most part, they simply involve using chemicals in novel ways on the order of a few nanometers wide. The first cancer nanotech applications will likely offer detection, not a cure. Nanoparticles could recognize cancer's molecular signatures, gathering the proteins produced by cancerous cells or signaling the presence of telltale genetic changes. Researchers have already used a protein called albumin -- considered a naturally occurring nanoparticle -- to detect proteins found in ovarian cancer tissue.

In short, in one area of medicine -- cancer research -- nanoparticles are already making a contribution, but even there, nanotechnology is not likely to "cure" cancer by 2015. One of the lessons from biotechnology is not over-promising. The real potential is exciting enough, and no one is ever disappointed when they get more than expected. Instead, these new technologies should go through normal regulatory channels, and only after clearing these routine hurdles, should we use them, not before.

Jaydee Hanson is Director of Human Genetics Policy for the International Center for Technology Assessment in Washington, D.C., and a Fellow of the Institute on Biotechnology and the Human Future.

¹Letter from Andrew C. von Eschenbach, Director of National Cancer Institute, Director's Message from the Nation's Investment in Cancer Research (Oct. 2004), available at www.cancer.gov/aboutnci/Nations-Investment-in-Cancer-Research-2003 (last visited on Nov. 23, 2005).