Biotechnology: The University Industrial Complex

Kenney is an assistant professor of agricultural economics at Ohio State. With this scholarly study he becomes an authoritative, cautionary voice on the close ties binding many universities to some of the world's largest corporations (mainly pharmaceutical) and how this ""university-industrial complex'' will effect educational institutions, agriculture, our very lives. Many university people will ponder thoughtfully Kenney's insights into the ways that big business, in the wake of the Watson-Crick DNA breakthrough in 1953, made their first passes at bio professors, university labs and university administrations themselves. When professors in effect become entrepreneurs, is pure science sullied? When halls of learning are caught up in the international struggle for markets by firms racing to produce profitable ``living robots'' viathe processes of altering microbial DNA, will ethics pay the price? Kenney asks in closing: ``Should the immense power of transforming and changing life forms be transferred to groups merely seeking a return on investment? Appendixes explain DNA splicing and offer an instructive history of biotech patents. (Septemberp)