In the past few decades, the life sciences have been transformed into gigantic bio-technosciences, blurring the boundaries between science and technology, universities, entrepreneurial biotech companies, and Big Pharma. Knowledge has become intellectual property, taking its place within a globalised economy that stretches from the older scientific centres of Europe and America to the rising eastern giants of China, Singapore and India. The state, with its interests in surveillance and control, and the military, have also played a key role in this transformation. In its train have come new and formidable powers not only to reconstruct but to construct life. Ours is a techno-scientific world where life is both born and made. This is new territory, with new threats and promises.
Hilary Rose and Steven Rose, Prometheus Inc
Steven and Hilary co-founded the British Society for Social Responsibility in Science
