Posted by Robert Lee Kilpatrick September 21, 2009 | 2 comment(s)
Recently in London, I was able to revisit the British Museum in Bloomsbury, to view the famous cat mummies in the Egyptian collection, and to enjoy a delicious lunch in the magnificent Great Court. Upon exiting the front of the museum, I headed south down Museum Street where I discovered My Little Eye Gallery which features the artistic genius of Willard Wigan.
Willard creates the world’s smallest micro-sculptures and combines science and art in a single creative endeavor. Each sculpture can sit on the head of a pin. Seeing this art really made me think about the creative process in new ways, and I began to see the truth in the statement, “everything starts small.” In a world that reveres big things, small things are often overlooked, or valued less.
Yet in the industry that I work in – the life science industry – the big companies such as Amgen, Genentech, Biogen-Idec, and Genzyme, were once start-ups. There are people alive today who remember that they were employee #7 or 22 at Genentech. As time passes, and new employees join an organization, and it grows and grows, the large company comes to be seen as always having been big. Big companies can often attract lots of capital, a skilled workforce, and enter markets with local networks, while smaller companies struggle to meet payrolls, and to retain employees. The cycle of birth, growth, maturity, decline and death, which is an inevitable part of the life process, happens to individuals, and to organizations, including companies, countries, and empires.
This week I have been in Barcelona, Spain, to attend Symbiosis: the 14th European Congress on Biotechnology, which has attracted delegates from 70 countries, including many leaders of the global life science community. I have been thinking about Willard’s micro-sculptures as I toured exhibits and talked to people, seeing that many of the exciting projects on display here are small and big at the same time. Many of the technologies that will be needed to address the world’s greatest challenges, not least of which will be to create sustainable solutions to feed, clothe and house a world population expected to rise from 6 Billion to 9 Billion in the next 20 years, are now at the idea stage, or are vested in small experimental projects. In this case, little things, such as ideas or start-ups, can become the biggest things – whole new industries.
My friend, Jens Sundbye, from Denmark who is on the Board of the European Federation of Biotechnology (EFB), pointed out that innovation in science and technology is the foundation of a vision in Europe of a knowledge-based economy. In this new economy, the life sciences have a major role to play in delivering sustainable solutions for human, animal, and plant health, as well as cleaner energy, and more efficient industrial production which is less harmful to the environment. The Symbiosis conference, which was created in 1978, promotes such innovation in Europe, and its partners around the world, by fostering novel ideas and their translation into small companies that are effective at technology transfer, and commercialization. Making small investments in the future that can grow bigger with time.
Europe has been fostering innovation in science and technology for many years, and huge investments have been made, by the public, and private sectors, in the biotechnology field. At Symbiosis, Maive Rute, Head of Food, Agriculture, Fisheries and Biotechnology for the European Commission’s Directorate General for Research outlined the great opportunity that biotechnology offers Europe, with 3,000 companies that have generated one third of worldwide patents in this field of research. European leaders fully understand the need to nurture creative ventures in science, although they sometimes disagree about the best ways to accomplish this outcome.
This trend is now happening around the world, and in conversation with Prof. Dr. Raif G. Vasilov, President of the Russian Biotechnology Society in Moscow, I learned that here too there is a huge commitment by the government to direct investments into a new knowledge-based economy. There is a commitment by the Russian Duma, or Federal Parliament, to adopt a national plan for biotechnology for 2010-2020 and before the end of the year a special legislative day is planned to discuss the specifics of it. Having lost much of its older Soviet era industrial-base, the Russian Federation seeks to adopt new technologies quickly to become more competitive in areas of the economy outside the oil and gas industry, which now provides major funding for the country.
In a meeting at Symbiosis, Dr. Alfredo Aguilar Romanillos, Head of Unit Biotechnologies at the European Commission pointed out that the EU is creating and implementing a framework for funding research and development in the life sciences in Europe, and also provides resources to organizations around the world that are willing and able to collaborate with European institutions on specific projects. Looking forward, greater efforts will be made to provide a cohesive framework for understanding how to access these resources, and to communicate progress back to stakeholders, including the public. This is very important, because many of the most innovative companies in Europe are still quite small (less than 100 employees) and are financially vulnerable.
I spent some time talking with David Fernandez Matarin of Asebio, the Spanish Bioindustry Association, who reports that there is still an appetite to grow biotechnology in Spain, but that the country has been hit hard by the world financial crisis, and Spanish life science companies are looking for new sources of capital, new partnerships, and new mechanisms to grow in an uncertain environment. Some Spanish companies will be at the 17th Annual BioPartnering Europe (BPE) in London, October 11-14 looking to do deals. Most Spanish life science companies are small, but they are eager to grow.
For a larger European perspective, I spoke with Willy De Greef, the Secretary General of EuropaBio, which is the Brussels-based European Association for Bioindustries. Willy came to EuropaBio from the Life Science industry, having had a career at Novartis and Syngenta, among others, and brings the mind-set of a manager to his job. In his view, it is necessary for Europe as a whole to become more globally competitive, and for technology transfer to be more efficient and effective, in its ability to work with funding agencies to create new innovative companies. The second stage of this process is for small European companies to become large European companies, to enrich the societies that funded them in the first place. For Europe to continue its high standard of living, a profound change will need to take place in Europe to foster and support innovation. “For our grandchildren to live well”, argues Willy, “we must take our small innovative companies and grow them into global leaders.” The history of European leadership in many fields in the past has arisen directly from risk-taking and creative thought, leadership, and action.
One of the greatest pioneers in the life science field offered insights at Symbiosis on the way forward for humanity. In his inaugural address titled “From Reading to Writing The Genetic Code”, Dr. Craig Venter, a leader of the Human Genome Project, and Chairman and President of the J. Craig Venter Research Institute in San Diego, California, remarked that “in order for genomics to provide solutions, we must move beyond our prejudices and fears regarding this branch of science, which can provide solutions to issues including food production, sustainable energy, and drinking water.” Looking at the world in new ways, with greater openness and consciousness of opportunities arising from the natural cycle of life: birth, growth, decline and death – will lead us to sustainable solutions.
Willard Wigan is right, to say that everything starts small. Everything that has ever been created by human beings started as an idea – a spark of inspiration. Every living thing grew and developed from smaller, pre-existing matter – a seed, an egg, or something less. Less is more when it lives and grows. Knowing how to nurture creativity, to foster innovation, to sustain development, and to use knowledge to benefit life on earth is possible. I have seen sculptures created on the head of a pin, and I am a believer.
Dr. Robert Lee Kilpatrick – Biotech Gadfly
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RESOURCES
British Museum: http://www.britishmuseum.org
Willard Wigan: http://www.willard-wigan.com
Willard Wigan: http://www.ted.com/talks/willard_wigan_hold_your_breath_for_micro_sculpture.html
Symbiosis: http://www.ecb14.eu
European Federation of Biotechnology (EFB): http://www.efb-central.org
Russian Biotechnology Society: http://biorosinfo.org
EuropaBio: http://www.europabio.org
European Commission: http://ec.europa.eu/index_en.htm
Asebio: http://www.asebio.com
J. Craig Venter Research Institute: http://www.jcvi.org
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
“Gadfly” is a term for people who upset the status quo by posing upsetting or novel questions, while at the same time being accepted as a description of honorable work or a civic duty.
2 Comment(s)
Posted on September 21, 2009 at 10:03 am
Very insightful and inspirational ... I am freshly reminded to pay attention to the seemingly small things that make all the difference in life. I watched a few minutes of the “TED talk” that Wigan gave and I am impressed at how adversity created opportunity for him to create a new value system in life. He was looked at as being small and insignificant by his school teacher and so he found a way to turn her value system on it’s head by making small things more significant than the seemingly large and significant.
Posted on September 21, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Yes Jonathan. Attitude and perception are crucial determinants in opportunity creation. Consciousness based on personal responsibility allows us to overcome the limits that people try to impose on us, and enables us to see novel ways of being.