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Synthetic biology is a logical extension of what has been called recombinant DNA (rDNA) technology or genetic engineering since the 1970s. As rDNA technology has been the driver for the development of a thriving biotechnology industry today, starting with the commercialization of biosynthetic human insulin in the early 1980s, synthetic biology has the potential to take the industry to new heights in the coming years. Synthetic biology advances have been driven by dramatic cost reductions in DNA sequencing and DNA synthesis; by the development of sophisticated tools for genome editing, such as CRISPR/Cas9; and by advances in informatics, computational tools, and infrastructure to facilitate and scale analysis and design. Synthetic biology approaches have already been applied to the metabolic engineering of microorganisms for the production of industrially important chemicals and for the engineering of human cells to treat medical disorders. It also shows great promise to accelerate the discovery and development of novel secondary metabolites from microorganisms through traditional, engineered, and combinatorial biosynthesis. We anticipate that synthetic biology will continue to have broadening impacts on the biotechnology industry to address ongoing issues of human health, world food supply, renewable energy, and industrial chemicals and enzymes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the middle of the 20th century, Chinese scientists have been actively involved in biotechnology. However, biotechnology education in China is a relatively recent phenomenon. This subject has not been addressed at the undergraduate level in a serious way until recently. In the last decade, biotechnology education developed rapidly and reached a new level in Chinese universities. The Chinese scientific establishment is very much aware of the importance of biotechnology and has identified this subject as one of the priority areas. Some universities are taking positive steps toward enhancing biotechnology education. This article focuses on the emergence, as well as the problems and prospects, of biotechnology education in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The biotechnology field has grown rapidly in recent years. Much attention is given to the potential of the biotechnology industry, from drugs and medical devices to environmental products which have the potential to generate tremendous opportunities for society, by improving the quality of health care and producing a cleaner environment. Redbiotechnology, or medical biotechnology, is one of the branches of the biotechnology and utilizes the organism to improve health, both in the pharmaceutical and medical sectors, mainly bringing all the biotechnology applications to medicine. Romanian potential was recognized by important biotech companies as an attractive destination for biotechnology research development. Currently running large programs for research, development, and innovation, regulated within a national implementation strategy, and with an attractive higher education offer, Romania is contributing to biotech advances and has great potential for development of biological pharmaceutical products. It also represents a valuable and promising partner for future international collaborations as biotechnology continues to evolve and will remain a major field of innovation and development in many areas of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The German biotechnology lag illuminates the difficulties of finding appropriate organizational forms of R&D for “embryo” innovations requiring the continued involvement of basic research scientists even after innovation has advanced to the stage of commercial product development. The analysis charts the German policy shift from largely unsuccessful “corporatist” networks (1970s and 1980s) to more promising “emergent” networks (1990s) as organizational vehicles for conducting biotechnology innovation. A constant of German R&D policy for most of the 20th century, and one underlying the initial reliance on corporatist networks in biotechnology, was the tendency to exclude universities from major R&D initiatives and rely instead on specialized research institutes. The structural inflexibilities of universities, combined with the early successes of many specialized research institutes from the 1880s on, led to path-dependent reliance on the latter for 20th-century reforms of the German national innovation system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars and activists working from within a political economy perspective often fail to explore the distinct motives, interests and behaviours of powerful actors who appear to be working 'as one' on a common agenda. Such is the case in recent analyses of efforts to promote the use of biotechnology in Africa. While the critical literature largely focuses on the attempt to create what Peter Newell calls 'bio-hegemony', the present paper explores the diverse interests and tensions that have to be worked out in order to build such pro-biotechnology coalitions. I analyse the formation of an organization called the African Agricultural Technology Foundation to show how differences between two major pro-biotech actors - the Rockefeller Foundation and the agricultural biotechnology industry - were negotiated, so that these actors could work together towards the goal of getting GM technologies used and accepted in Africa. In the process, I reveal the inward projection of power that occurred as the biotech companies effectively determined the structure and terms of this alliance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent growth of biotechnology requires a wide range of expertise within the industry. Education is the primary platform for students to gain information and knowledge on biotechnology. In Malaysia where biotechnology is relatively new, education programs and courses must be tailored to meet the demands of the industry. A combination of theoretical knowledge as well as practical and industrial training is essential to ensure graduates are prepared for their career in the fields of biotechnology. Results from this study show that university students lack literacy on biotechnology information and access to facilities provided by the universities. This may be a significant contributing factor to the lack of knowledge and information amongst graduates. Furthermore comparative analysis on the biotechnology program in Malaysian universities with that of other countries show the need to restructure the program by offering more specialized courses as well as soft skills and business subjects. This is to meet the demands of the related professionals as well as the various branches that exist in the biotechnology industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biotechnology is a young, but important industry in South Africa. As elsewhere, entrepreneurship is considered crucial to unlocking the growth potential of biotechnology. This paper is novel in that it assesses the first structured attempts in South Africa to equip scientists to build a bridge between the science of biotechnology and the commercialisation of knowledge in this field. Employing case study methods, the bio-entrepreneurship training programme at Cape Biotech is evaluated. The main objective of the programme is to support and facilitate the development of business skills necessary for sustainable biotechnology ventures, and the development of bio-entrepreneurs and future business managers. The programme is evaluated against its objectives from the perspectives of the participants and against the backdrop of their understanding of bio-entrepreneurship, their views on the prospects for South Africa’s biotechnology industry, and their assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of this industry in the Western Cape region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite decades of network research, the crucial question, “How do networks evolve?” has not been sufficiently explored. The authors explore this question by analyzing the co-authorship networks in the U.S. biotechnology firms. Building on network management and network inertia perspectives, the authors build a model predicting that the structural changes in the firms’ co-authorship networks are dependent on the specific characteristics of firms’ initial networks, the firm’s age and size. The authors then extend the model by incorporating a measure of the impact of the quality of the knowledge produced by the network ties using the prominence and inertia perspectives, which lead to the incorporation of competing hypotheses and moderating relationships in the model of scientific network evolution. The authors then test the model using longitudinal analysis of 367 U.S. biotechnology firms over a span of 17 years. The authors find that firms’ existing tie-specific characteristics in the form of a firm’s existing network size, tie strength, and the knowledge quality are significant determinants of network evolution, but that this influence is tempered by organizational inertia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on an analysis of personnel flows (managerial and employee), the authors show that knowledge flows in the biotech sector in Poland are strongly concentrated in space. With respect to managerial intra-metropolitan flows, Warszawa has a similar position to Cracow and the Tri-City (Gdańsk-Gdynia-Sopot conurbation). Cracow is characterised by strong isolation with respect to personnel flows from the outside. On the other hand, within the scope of inter--metropolitan flows, Poland's capital is dominant, in particular in terms of flows to the Tri-city, Poznari and Łódź. In the case of employee flows, the most important features of the examined issue are: dominance of intra-metropolitan flows and strong relationship between flows and the headquarters of the largest biotechnological companies. The conducted studies have shown that in the context of the Polish biotech sector, the concept of "local buzz, global pipelines" is corroborated, in line with which local and global knowledge flows are complementary with respect to each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the authors focus on specifically which types of networks and what types of relationships matter most for the focal firm's innovative performance in biotechnology patenting. They suggest that certain network characteristics, such as quality and the source of knowledge, and the quality of relationships among actors may have a profound effect on the knowledge exchange and hence the number of patents granted to the firm. The authors focus on the research coauthorship networks of 381 firms in the U.S. biotechnology industry over a span of 17 years, from 1990 to 2006. In the biotechnology industry, firms depend heavily on the social network of academic scientists for the exchange and production of knowledge, with firm-level patenting closely linked to it. Their findings largely support the hypotheses, suggesting the necessity to consider the characteristics of the actors and the qualitative nature of the relationships in the network while assessing the role of the firm's networks on its patenting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study combines insights from economic sociology on recent structural changes in the knowledge economy with neoinstitutionalist analyses of cultural change in organizations. Because a network form of organization relies on interorganizational ties, new models of legitimacy emerge alongside of old ones, rather than replacing them, so that seemingly contradictory institutions coexist in the network form. This article explores how life scientists legitimate working in the biotechnology industry—a new option that nevertheless fails to delegitimate the old academic path. The data are based on qualitative observations of a young biotechnology firm. These are supplemented by observations at a university laboratory and interviews with 41 life scientists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper moves a step forward in the direction of establishing a connection between the structure and evolution of knowledge bases and the structure and evolution of organizational forms in innovative activities in a science-intensive industry. The paper has an explicit focus on the dynamics of the network of collaborative agreements in R&D in the pharma/biotech industry after the “molecular biology revolution”. Using a comprehensive dataset, built by the authors integrating several sources in the industry, the dynamics of the network over time is extensively analyzed. With regards to network structure, it is found that, while the size of the network increases over time due to net flows of entry, its topological properties remain relatively unchanged. The evolution of the network has occurred without relevant deformations in the core-periphery profile. With regards to age-dependent propensity to collaborate, the paper finds that the extent of inter-generational collaboration is much more significant than intra-generational collaboration. In addition, the propensity of firms of a given generation to enter into collaboration with firms of a different generation increases with the distance between the two, while the total number of intra-generational collaborations decreases over time and, moreover, tends to decrease for most recent generations. In the paper a unitary and coherent explanation of the evidence is developed, coming to reveal the existence of a striking isomorphism between structural properties of the dynamics of knowledge and of the evolution of network structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]