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Tech-Op-ed December, 2020 SOUNDING OFF


By Michael Skinner Editor


Biotech: Accidentally Saving the World


N


ow a century old, the field of biotechnology was born, raised and spurred on by a series of wonderful — and sometimes accidental — dis- coveries. Biotechnology, as we understand it today, evolved out of in-


dustrial fermentation processes, particularly for beer, toward the end of the 19th Century. The term is credited to Hungarian agricultural engineer Károly Ereky,


who coined it to describe his method of using biological agents to “upgrade” raw materials into useful products. He saw this harnessing of natural mech- anisms with technological direction as an answer to some of society’s greatest problems, such as shortages of food and energy. Ereky published a book, “Biotechnology of Meat, Fat and Milk Production in an Agricultural Large- Scale Farm” in 1919. He then created one of the most successful slaughter- house and meat processing plants in the world. The scaling up of biotechnology saw two massive spikes during World


Wars I and II. In the first war, it was applied by Germans in large-scale yeast production to feed animals, while on the Allied side, maize was fermented in- to acetone for use in cordite, a gunpowder replacement. Biotechnology wasn’t associated strongly with health care until the


1940s, when during World War II, corn steep liquor was used to produce mil- lions of doses of penicillin in time for the invasion of Normandy. Penicillin is perhaps one of the most famous scientific “accidents,” in the


words of its discoverer, Alexander Fleming. Fleming, a professor of bacteriol- ogy at University of London, found that a bit of staphylococcus aureus bacte- ria he had been studying was killed off by a strange mold that had appeared while he was away on vacation. In 1945 he was awarded the Nobel Prize, af- ter penicillin contributed to preserving countless lives during World War II. The biotech field has expanded in every direction. Today we depend


heavily on genetically modified crops, industrial fuels like bioethanol and biodiesel, but mainly on biotech applications in medicine. Over the last 70 years, the development, testing and mass production of


medicine has dominated the field. It would appear to be the perfect mix of bi- ology, technology and business — an ever-expanding population with a limit- less number of health problems and hugely successful pharmaceutical com- plex born from the ashes of the Second World War. With the discovery of the structure of DNA in the 1950s, decades of re-


search were poured into understanding the fundamental code of life. Then, another incredible accident. While studying a type of streptococcus, Jennifer Doudna and Emanuelle Charpentier stumbled upon a small protein named Cas9, found in the bacteria’s “’CRISPR’ immune system.” They realized that this protein could be used to precisely target and edit sequences of DNA. This year, the two women were awarded the Nobel Prize for their method of genome editing. The field has taken another critical step, with the ability to identify and


edit the human genome at a low cost and on a grand scale. Similar to the way that much electronics industry-specific knowledge is no longer trapped in nar- row vertical channels, a crop of well-funded biomedical startups are now lean- ing more toward collaboration than ever before. This year has shown how rapidly both manufacturing and healthcare can


go digital when it is absolutely necessary. It is very likely that many of these changes will be permanent, with a greater portion of tasks handled online, when in-person interactions or operations are not mandatory. Also, due to the explosion of information available to the average con-


sumer, high-profile scams and spectacular failures in the medical industry are glaringly obvious and impossible to miss, e.g. “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli and “Facing Up to 20 Years in Prison” Elizabeth Holmes. We are on the verge of another rapid acceleration of the biotech industry.


Computing power and the amount of available digital information are still growing exponentially, and some form of general artificial intelligence is on the horizon. The availability of more information and research funding, large- ly enabled by the massive success of pharmaceuticals, increases the number of opportunities for new discoveries, like the serendipitous findings of peni- cillin and CRISPR-Cas9. “One sometimes finds what one is not looking for. When I woke up just


after dawn on September 28, 1928, I certainly didn’t plan to revolutionize all medicine by discovering the world’s first antibiotic, or bacteria killer,” said Fleming. “But I suppose that was exactly what I did.” r


PUBLISHER’S NOTE


By Jacob Fattal Publisher


Working Differently A


gap in the workforce between well-educated, white-collar workers and lower-earning laborers is gradually, but steadily, widening. It has been decades since an impending massacre of jobs due to robotics was first


forecast and, fortunately, we are still waiting. In fact, this doom-and-gloom prediction has not only been soundly proven false again and again, but its per- sistence overshadows the reality that the future of work is changing, albeit by small, hesitant steps. According to David Autor, the Ford Professor of Economics at MIT, “The


sky is not falling, but it is slowly lowering.” From his perspective, the world is changing in important ways and if we just let it go, we may see some very un- desirable outcomes. First, that automation is completely eliminating work is a misconcep-


tion. While many workplaces have seen drastic changes due to automation, the overall ratio of adults in paid employment to those who are not has main- ly risen for more than 100 years. A popular myth is that automation will make a society richer, but each individual poorer. This is wrong not only because the employment numbers don’t reflect this, but also that exponential gains to pro- ductivity do, in fact, benefit individuals. Next, this change has not happened overnight. It is an enormous simpli-


fication to boil down “automation” to “robots taking jobs.” Actually, there are a number of services that match job seekers with positions that are them- selves completely automated, allowing the user to filter through hundreds of opportunities and reach out to far more potential employers than otherwise. Needless to say, none of these automated services resemble anything close to what most people would think of as a “robot.” It is true that rising overall labor productivity has not translated into


broad increases in every individual’s income. But, according to Autor and his team, this is because many societal institutions and labor market policies have been allowed to erode. This also includes other factors of working life, such as work environment, termination notice time, paid vacations, sick time, and personal leave. A relentless pressure on optimizing purely for the bottom line, without any care for individual workers, offers no incentive to companies to invest in lesser-skilled people. While technology changes incrementally, it is a fact that certain skillsets


and even entire career paths become obsolete over time. As a society, we should constantly be on the lookout for ways to help our colleagues and em- ployees add new skills. Finally, we should not be afraid of the possibility of a major change in our


job or in our companies. It is natural to build on ideas, skills and processes that make us feel secure. But, as 2020 has shown us, there always comes a time when many things we take for granted are torn away and we must reex- amine where we spend our efforts. As the year draws to a close, we at U.S. Tech are very grateful to be one


part of the global high-tech electronics manufacturing industry. At the fore- front of technology, as well as business, it is apparent that constant innovation and adaptation to change are the guiding prin- ciples. And that will never change. r


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